Respite for farmers: A brick-and-mortar storage for vegetables designed by IIT-B alumnus

It’s a humble, brick-and-mortar storage facility, with a covering on top, but this simple device, designed by a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

It’s a humble, brick-and-mortar storage facility, with a covering on top, but this simple device, designed by a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B), is helping farmers beat the effects of the nationwide lockdown. The cooling unit, which only needs water and does not run on electricity, keeps vegetables fresh for longer, which means farmers don’t have to sell their produce at throwaway prices.

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Named the Subjee Cooler, the cooling unit has been designed by RuKart Technologies, founded by Vikas Jha. “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 the (non-tuber) vegetable crop for five to eight days,” said Jha, a 2016 graduate of IIT-B.

RuKart Technologies — with the help of the trade union Self-Employed Women’s Association — has set up 66 such cooling units for farmers in Bihar, Odisha, and Maharashtra. It’s working on an order for 200 more instalments, said Jha.

Jha said farmers with Subjee Coolers are able to charge prices that are 20–30% higher than others. “Earlier a farmer would harvest vegetables only once in a week, the day before the weekly market. Now an adopter [farmer with Subjee Cooler] harvests the vegetable thrice a week and stores their produce. While our adopters are selling their produce to middlemen as well as consumers at the weekly market directly, non-adopters are selling their produce only to middlemen,” he said.