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STORY: (Nidhi Pant, Co-founder of S4S Technologies) "How can we reduce wastage and at the same time give a good income to farmers?”

The answer to that question lies in this solar-powered food dehydrator….

according to Nidhi Pant, the co-founder of the company that developed it.

She says it helps some of India’s poorest rural farmers decrease wastage and increase income

by extending the life of their produce that would otherwise have to be thrown away.

(Nidhi Pant) “Our solar conduction dryers can increase the shelf-life of the produce by reducing the moisture content and the fruits and vegetables can be stored for 12 months.”

The dehydrator is developed by S4S Technologies. S4S stands for ‘Science for Society.'

It needs no electricity and can dry foods ten times faster than the sun alone.

“In India we have traditionally been practicing sun-drying to dry the produce but it takes 6 to 10 days for it to dry leading to a lot of microbial and fungal growth. Using S4S’s solar conduction dryer we have now achieved this in a more efficient way. In 6 to 8 hours we can dehydrate it rather than 6 to 10 days and also there is a reduced microbial and fungal score, maintaining 80 to 95 percent nutrition intact.”

S4S then buys back the dehydrated produce from small holder farmers or cooperatives

and sells their produce to some of the world’s biggest food producers,

including Sodexo, Nestle and Unilever.

(SOUNDBITE) (Marathi) SHOBHA RATHOD, FARMER SAYING: “So these are the smaller bits of ginger that used to be wasted but now we cut it up and dry it with the solar drying machine. When it’s dry we send it to S4S which has given us the chance to sell more produce and earn more money. It’s changed our lives. I use the money to pay for school for my children as well as running the house.”

As much as 40% of the perishable food produced in India goes to waste every year.

That's according to former agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.

Crops are left to rot in the sun without storage or transportation,

or eaten by insects and rats due to a lack of access to storage facilities.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that one third of food produced globally for human consumption is wasted every year.