Respite for farmers: A brick-and-mortar storage for veggies
It’s a humble, brick-andmortar storage facility, with a covering on top, but this simple device is helping farmers beat the effects of the nationwide lockdown. Designed by a graduate of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B), the cooling unit, which only needs water and does not run on electricity, keeps vegetables fresh for longer so farmers don’t have to sell their produce at throwaway prices.
Named the Subjee Cooler, the unit has been designed by Rukart Technologies, founded by Vikas Jha, a 2016 graduate of IIT-B. The agricultural sector has been among the worst hit by the lockdown. Farmers with no storage facilities have been compelled to undersell crops. But Praphula Kido, a cultivator from northwest Odisha, is among those who got good prices for his tomatoes, thanks to the Subjee Cooler at his one-acre farm. He can charge ₹25-30 per kilogram (kg) of tomatoes as opposed to the ₹ 7-8/kg that many farmers have to settle for since their produce is not as fresh.
“Subjee Cooler works on the principle of evaporative cooling and does not require any utilities. However, it requires watering, once daily. The cooling chamber temperature is lower than the ambient temperature by a margin of 5-15°C [depending on ambient relative humidity] and maintains a high relative humidity of above 85-90% inside the cooling chamber. The low temperature and high humidity inside the chamber preserve (non-tuber) vegetable crop for five to eight days,” said Jha. Rukart Technologies has set up 66 such cooling units in Bihar, Odisha and Maharashtra.