NAIROBI, March 22 (Xinhua) -- From a distance, the block and wire structure looks like a small chicken coop. On closer inspection, however, its interior walls are lined with black polythene sheets, which you would not find in a poultry house.
"This is a solar vegetable dryer. The black sheet helps to attract and retain heat from the sun to dry vegetables faster," said Emmy Misoo, an officer from the University of Eldoret, about 260 km northwest of Kenya's capital Nairobi, during a recent exhibition in Eldoret, the capital of Uasin Gishu County.
Misoo then lifted a transparent nylon sheet that served as the dryer's door, removed a bunch of dried leaves from the gadget, and placed them in a plastic box. She then stuffed the dryer with another bunch of freshly harvested traditional vegetables to dry.
"In about eight hours, I will remove them because they would have dried to the desired level," Misoo said.
The dryer is one of the solutions researchers in the East African country are presenting to fresh produce farmers and traders to curb post-harvest losses.
The dryers dry various kinds of vegetables for longer shelf life, as well as fruits such as mangoes and bananas, and tubers such as cassava and arrowroot. Unlike vegetables, however, tubers and fruits must be chopped into small pieces for faster drying.
At least 30 percent of the agricultural produce harvested in Kenya is wasted due to poor post-harvest practices, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Farm produce includes vegetables and fruits, which farmers harvest in bulk and find difficult to store as they seek markets, leading to waste.
Agriculturalists like Misoo, however, are keen to change this tide through local solutions that farmers can easily adopt and use on the farm. "The fact that one does not need any specialized knowledge to use it makes it a perfect solution to the problem of food waste," Misoo said.
She uses the dryer to preserve traditional vegetables that she grows and exports to friends and relatives abroad, including Australia and the United States. "Initially, I dried the produce and sent it to my relatives who live in the two countries, but they helped me find a new market and now even buy from me," she said, adding that she sends it once a month.
She sells a kilo for 3,000 Kenyan shillings (about 22 U.S. dollars), a cost that includes freight. It is a business she said she will expand once she has a good source of vegetables.
At the exhibition, Misoo did not sell the gadget but rather educated farmers on how to make and use their own. Not far from her stand was Isaiah Etemo, a lecturer at Moi University, also in Uasin Gishu County, who has invented a solar dryer that uses hot air to dry various agricultural products.
To dry farm produce, Etemo, who majors in agricultural engineering, said air is contained inside the gadget, creating a greenhouse effect as a fan circulates it. The machine comes with a moisture meter he calls "Mootle," which he also invented to allow farmers to monitor how their produce is drying.
George Ndirangu, a small-scale herb and spice farmer, was among those interested in solar drying technologies.
Ndirangu said he was keen to adopt solar drying technologies not only to reduce post-harvest losses but also to save costs, as he had been using an electric dryer. With electricity prices rising in Kenya, Ndirangu said he had to look for alternatives.
"I grow coriander, basil and rosemary. Most Kenyans don't consume these spices raw, so there's no way around drying and grinding them for business," says Ndirangu.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food losses for some fresh horticultural crops, such as bananas in Kenya, are as high as 50 percent at various stages, from production due to disease to transportation due to bruises. The FAO noted that the solution to food loss should not be more expensive than the food loss itself.
That is why the solar drying solutions pioneered by Kenyan inventors are so welcome to farmers. ■
