Cleaner, safer food: India

India is an agrarian country that has achieved good levels of agricultural production. The challenge it now faces is to find ways of improving post-harvest processing to boost the quality and shelf life of its agricultural products.

 

Traditionally, sun-drying in the open air was the main way of processing crops after harvest, and this is still practised by small-scale producers. More recently, however, conventional fossil fuels have replaced the sun as a source of energy for the drying of crops and produce, particularly among industrial-scale producers.

 

Both methods have drawbacks: either they are not particularly hygienic or healthy or they consume energy inefficiently and uneconomically, causing environmental pollution, which, among its other negative effects, reduces the quality of the final products.

 

Solar thermal energy has the potential to replace fossil fuels in both industry and agriculture and represents a cleaner alternative that is more economical, more environmentally friendly and sustainable and that produces higherquality end-products.

 

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