Extending the Life of Fruits and Vegetables

This is a big problem. I dont know any more about agreculture. But I strongly suggest this thread should be sticky on a special place. so that every one can read it.

in the past, our chinese stored crop or grain in basement deeply or foot of hills in order to keep lower temperature and keep away light. our sweet potato is stored in this way, which can pass long winter.

some of them can be made of dry food. or export to africa where need food very much.

potato has ever saved europen life in the history, I wsa told it still is main food of theirs at present. they must know how to store it.

Dear Sir,

The temperature is already above 30 C .It would shortly reach 40 C and may reach 44C.These are plane of North India.There are no hills or underground cellars.I was trained at IFFIT(International facility for Food irradiation at Wageningen,Holland a combined effort of IAEA /Govt of Netherland.

The centralised plant is very expensive to install .The nuclear source either Cesium-137 /Cobalt -60 difficult to get in india and expensive.A centralsed plant is no sollution for a country like india.who will pay for the to and for transport charge

H.S.Sharma ,FAO(UNO) Consultant ex E mail:-huda1921@gmail.com

Hari sharma,

Where in India does the ambient temperature exceed 50 C (122 F) regularly???

While I am certainly no expert in climate, I think you stretch/overstate the facts somewhat.

I recall there being a severe heat wave back in 2002 that hit Andhra Pradesh, in Southern India. That heat wave was implicated in the deaths of of 600 people. During that heat wave, I believe that the maximum recorded temperature was 51 C.

Regardless, 60% agricultural waste, and less than 1% of the of what is grown actually making it all the way to processing/packaging... Those statistics are eye opening...

As CNPower suggested, perhaps large scale food drying/dehydration should be further pursued.

And to tighten the percentage going to waste, perhaps the processing plants should be situated closer to the farms where the produce is grown, shortening transit time, consuming less fossil fuels in transport, and being more "sustainable" overall.

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Just my $0.02...

I don't know if it will help in this case or not, but it might be worth looking into. When fruits and vegetables are harvested, one of the things that controls how quickly they continue to ripen (and I assume rot) is the presence of ethylene gas.

The source of this gas comes naturally from damaged or ripening fruit itself. Nature uses it to trigger the ripening process. So for example in an enclosed space if you place a ripe apple next to an unripe one, the unripe apple will probably begin to ripen more quickly than if you place two unripe apples together.

There are methods which reduce ethylene gas in food storage areas. Perhaps the wise CR4 members know something about it?

Dear Sir,

in case ofpotato there is no ripening in the stricy sense of the word.It is only increse of sugar.leading to browning if made in to chips,as such ethylene has no role to plaH.S.sharma-M-09873020599/E mail:-huda1921@gmail.com

For storage of potatoes, root cellars are the low tech way. Don't know how this would work out in hot climate, but check this out.

Drying is the obvious choice for fruits and veggies in a place that's hot and dry. Basic drying design is pretty simple: a roof for shelter with open sides to let the wind blow through: slatted shelves or mesh to lay slices, or places to hang bunches of stuff on the inside.

except irradation, drying, a goood way is deep process into amylum.

this will has more economic value for peasants. then continue to process more other by products.

I suggest your orgnazation come to china for more trainning. I think our peasants have many good ideas.

Dear Guru,

advise whom to contact in china for Potato processing ideas

H.S.Sharma,FAO(UNO) Consultant ex

M-09873020599/E mail:-huda1921@gmail.com

The best bet for you is ask for UN crop and agreculture orgnaze through your goverment. through them you can get the information of our agricultrual ministry.

if there wuld be any problem, I could help again.

btw, how do your goverment think about this things?

do they support your idea?

A very low tech system has been implemented in some areas of Africa to dry potatoes. They mounted a potato slicer on the back of a bicycle and then the slices are placed in the sun to remove the moisture. They are then ground by a hand grinder and placed in plastic bags for storage that can last several months. I would think a somewhat more automated system could be identified and developed. Take advantage of the environment instead of fighting it. You say it is 95% relative humidity so if that is really true, it could be problematic----but still should be investigated. A potato is 80% moisture so it still may dry out in high humidities.

Hi Dr Sharma,

Agricultural production, output pricing, distribution, storage & processing are a complex phenomenon in India.

The main ill of this vital activity is over crowding leading to severe competition. Competition is good but very high competition is bad. It only helps in unnecessarily lowering of prices to a non-remunerative level. My contention states that till the time a farmer makes a reasonable profit he will not have anything to plough back in either improving quality or technique. Quality & technique improvement will lead to higher volumes and off-course greater profits. Greater profits are source of investment surplus will can be utilized towards value addition which includes preservation for future consumption in the surrounding area as well as far away places. Farm output processing helps reduce food wastages. It further generates local employment, improves quality of life in the countryside & reduces the population pressure on cities.

So how to get over this over crowding?

There is no proper answer. The issue is highly politicized in India. The land holdings are small and continue to be sub-divided with each passing generation. However, some people in Maharashtra have started a collective farm. They have clubbed together all their land and made it a huge farm. The village is shifted to a nearby barren plot where 4storied houses have been made for all. Rain water harvesting has been started. Only a few persons are employed on the farms. The remaining people are free to do their own chores. They have bio-gas & solar power. So I trust this way the endeavor is most likely to succeed. Incase this happens, it's most likely to catch-on.

Anil Tiwari/Delhi

The certain thing about fruit and vegetables is that they are "perishable" by nature and will only store for as long as the local environment allows.

The possible solution that I will suggest is that most fruit and vegetables will store in some processed forms.

The African suggestion to dry the potatoes and consequently concentrate the starch is a wonderful example. Other opportunities exist to preserve by cooking (and thus value adding) the materials, so excess tomatoes could be made into tomatoe soup, thickened with potatoe starch and flavoured by whatever excess vegetables are in season.

"Tetra" packaging of this product will then render it sterile and able to be stored and transported without refrigeration for very long periods provided proper sanitary means are employed in th eproduction and packaging.

Such a generic nutritious soup could supplement basic staple meals of rice or grain meal in any home in India or abroad. I'm sure there are many settlements around the capital cities where such food would be welcomed.

By the way, if this idea yakes off, I'd like some of the credit.

My understanding of the situation in India was not of such waste, but of a general absence of available nutrition. Maybe things have changed since I was there a few years back. (And yes it was in Delhi and Agra a few days before the monsoon. above 40 degrees and unmeasurable humidity and I had the privelege on those days to visit an indoor foundry for silver and copper production.)

Far as I know India is a big country with one developed transportation infrastructure that they themselves take for granted. Far as I know India has a railroad transportation infrastructure. I have not visited and touched all, but that is what I have gleaned from readings and online interactions on CR4.< Food distribution is a key. My suggestion to you is that you arrange to have your produce transported by train to markets where it can be used as is, before it rots, and otherwise is processed and canned, before it rots.< Of course another option is to let it rot and capture the gas, and sell that.

P.S. Hari PV, and Chandu are people on CR4 who live in Banglalore, and I will attempt to alert of your need for help. You may check out the sustainable engineering blog to find some of your countrymen who are attempting to improve the situation for you overall. As descended from Irish who were starved when potatoes got the blight, I care about how things go with potatoes. Love, Russell

Hi...India is a large land mass. The city of Bangalore is a good 2500km by rail / road from Mr Sharma's potato farms. This season they sold for Rs 1.00 per Kg or US cents 2.00 per kg. There are hundreds & thousands of Kgs to spare. Most of the crop is thrown away as it's too costly to transport such low priced food stuff.....and this is the problem. How to use it without much investment?

Anil Tiwari

Dear Anil, I do not know.< In the US they turn such stuff into potato chips and sell it loaded with salt as Snack Food that makes kids fat and gives adults heart attacks.< Possibly you might grow a more diversified crop? It was a big failure of the Irish to too much depend on potatoes. <Of course potatoes are great. They will grow year round. You can actually live almost entirely off of potatoes.> <The earliest color photographs were dependent on potato starch to enable the chemical process. I have forgotten how that worked.> <Still, if potatoes are not working for you, let us discover what will.> <What tools do you have in place, and are commonly understood?< <What Port is available to you for export?< <If you are committed to potatoes, which is likely, then what can be made from potatoes that is most value added?< <If potatoes are not useful as food beyond 200 miles since they are grown everywhere and compete with rice, then what other use is there for the excess?< <In North Carolina of the US they have designed a Yam that is inedible and only useful as a substance to create biofuel.< <That work has been done at NC State University.< <I cannot answer all of your questions right now, but only ask some.< <I will attempt to see where you are exactly on a map, which will help me to make some suggestions.< Please understand that I have myself experienced poverty before in my life, and am near close to losing all again, even though I have only connections to lose. I myself have no property, but only these lines, phones, internet. Used to be it was just a place to build a fire and some postcards. Since HAL has been screwed with in Bangalore, could you get them to relocate to make come competitive airplanes there?

Ours is the same price when harvest. recently I buy from supermarket is about 16cents, and on free market is aoubt 12 cents.

they all transported from also about 600km--800km away.

I cannt imagine , how man will live under so higher temp up to 50C?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigerator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator (generally more commercially available)

Neither of these require electricity to run, are very durable, and some designs do not even have moving parts, and therefore require little or no maintenence, and will run for decades.

After that the next thing you should tackle is insulating your storage facillities.

right now 5,00,000 tons of potato have been thrown out from cold storages to make room for the fresh bumper crop of potatoes which must be put in cold storage till september

So your problem is not storage, but transportation to market, and overproduction. Why were those potatoes not consumed by those we see starving in India? Contact me at oertg@aol.com to find out how a food/fuel/fallow cropping cycle coupled with a system of cellulosic ethanol production generates the electricity and CO2 needed to set up local cold storage facilities. Closer to local markets means less transportation infrastructure demands.

Please see if this helps. You can revise the assumptions as appropriate. I am offering a line of thought.

Value of solution - 500,000 Kg * Rs 1/Kg* $ 1/ 40 RS =$ 12,500.

How often does this problem occur? Say 4 times / year - Annual savings $ 50,000.

Cost of cooling 500,000*2.2*1*(50*1.8+32-40) * 6/ M BTU = $ 542/0.75 eff = ~ $ 725. Say X 4 for 4 occasions = $ 2,900 for cooling down. Another $ 2,900 to maintain. + labor / maintenance and Overhead $ 10,000. Anuual expenses = $ 15,800.

Net annual savings = 34,200 . For a 4 year payback. Affordable capital = $ 136,800

What if we built a "second warehouse".

Assume height to be 25 feet. Density 30 lbs / cu ft. Volume = 36,667 cu ft.

Floor space @ 25 ft height = 1,467 sq, ft.

@ $ 50 /sq ft. Warehouse cost = $ 73,333 / 0.75 eff = 98,000 <<< $ 136,800 above. A good project.

All other alternatives - drying, just in time distribution, balancing supply and demand - can be quickly assesed by a simillar method. Let the best ROI win.

If anyone wishes to discuss firther, I may be reached at 720-949-6498 or

ashok_dhruv@productivityandgrowth08.com

Thanks.

wow, pls see clearly unit !

its MT not Kg. there will be 1000 times difference.

I SAW A TWO POT COOLER MADE FROM LARGE BISQUE FIRED POTS. A SLIGHTLY SMALLER POT IS PLASED INSIDE A LARGER POT. SAND IS FILLED IN AROUND THE SMALLER POT. WATER IS POURED IN TO SATURATE THE SAND. THEN A GOOD COVER IS PLACED OVER BOTH POTS. FOOD KEPT IN THE SMALLER POT IS KEPT COOL BY THE EVAPORATION THROUGH THE POROUS UNGLAZED POTS. SIMPLE, CHEAP, EASY TO USE EVAPORATIVE COOLER. I HOPE THIS IS SOME HELP, LES HARVEY

Unfortunately, the high humidity prevents evaporative cooling methods from being very effective.

Dear Sir,

please be practical.What would be the size of eapotive cooler.Assume one tonne size you would need 500,000 coolers?.What would be the space rquirement ?

how 500,000 units would be accomodated/landsize quire.Cost of land ? avlue of land.

Area of potto crop varies with the price ? realised

H.S.Sharma M-09873020599/E mail:-huda1921@gmail.com

Hi...

This problem is not there only for potatoes. In India there are regions of plenty. In this country the agriculture production depends on the season. During season you can find several perishable fruits & veggies rotting in abundance such as oranges, grapes, mangoes, pineapples, tomatoes, cauliflower, lettuce, brinjals, beans etc etc.

It's known for long that processing & preservation at the farm end will help mitigate these hardships. But,...the big question remains. It is :

1. Technical issues.... such as finding the right technology for food processing and markets. This can be achieved quite easily as knowledge is there.
2. Commercial Issues....these pertain to mostly financing & pricing which again could be controlled as finding right finance is not very difficult.
3. Political Issues....is the main hindrance. It includes social factors such as overcrowding and fragmentation of farm land. The socialistic pattern of society promoted by the previous governments is holding back huge investments in this sector (You can remember the TATA's experience of having to shift out their mega car manufacturing plant in Bengal). Similarly, local governments in several states oppose private investments in the farm sector by Reliance, Airtel, Shaw Wallace & Co etc stating that it represents capitalist desires of domination by the investor. In this peculiar democratic set-up called India it is a great free for all for political parties big or small. They exploit the sentiments of the poor & illiterate farmers. The result is that a good production is still not able to get them a remunerative price in order to help end their misery. Every tom, dick or harry of a politician is trying to be one up without realising the harm he is causing to the economy as a whole. It is the Indian farming sector which is not allowing the GDP growth to enter double digits.

Maybe one day a good strongman will come forward who will put a stop to all this,

Anil Tiwari/New Delhi

Drying fruit and vegetables seems to be the solution most likely to succeed.

This can be done on the farm, or a group of farmers can get together to do it.

For potatoes, the best approach would be for groups of farmers to cook their surplus, mash and dry it. This dried mashed potato can be kept for a long time and also exported.

What sort of winter temps do you get?

If the average annual temp is reasonable, a couple of metres down in the ground will remain coolish even in summer.

In that case, farmers can excavate cellars, cover them with soil so they don't lose valuable land for growing and store potatoes or any other root crop buried in dry sand.

Depending on the conditions, root crops can be kept for a year or so that way. When prices are poor the farmer can store his surplus, selling when prices are good.

Crops like potatoes don't have a high enough value to transport far or to store commercially for any length of time, but it can pay the farmer to do it - particularly as he can make his own storage for little cost.

Of course the storage would have to be suitably protected from monsoon flooding, but if the government experts can work out a suitable design, the farmers can build it.

Don't understand your implied connection between the FIFO method of storage and storage replenishment and the fact that some mothers are undernourished (or overworked obtaining food?). When you say, go to waste, do you mean it is not used for soil replenishment? Or not available for consumption through charities and government poverty programs? You seem to connect infant under nutrition as a factor of farm produce "waste" as opposed to over demand due to overpopulation. Why is that? If scarcity of food is, indeed a limiting factor on life expectancy (and on population growth) how is that a bad thing in the longer view? History has seen many population catastrophes deriving directly from (as an unforeseen "evil" consequence of) technological innovation. The mass emigration to and settlement of the Americas is a notable case in point....due in large part to old world improvements in agriculture which allowed populations to grow...to the point of starvation necessitating movement to new land.