In Rourkela, farmers store unsold produce in solar-powered cold storage rooms and sell it at a later date, cutting food waste and securing farmers' income.
00:00Pumpkins! Pumpkins! Pumpkins! Just 20 rupees for you.
00:09It's been a long day for the vendors trying to sell produce at Rurkala's markets.
00:14And things get harder as the heat starts to spoil fruits and vegetables that are not sold quickly enough.
00:22We would bring our vegetables here in a van and take any leftovers back with us in the same vehicle.
00:29About 25 percent would spoil on the way.
00:33At Pantosh Market in Rurkala, local resident Sumina Sonu Bad has seen what this means for the prices vendors are able to charge.
00:42If the market rate is 40 rupees or about 40 euro cents, they let it go for rupees 10, just to avoid taking it back.
00:50Sometimes they'd even have to throw it away. After all their hard work, they wouldn't even recover a day's wage.
00:57It left many farmers feeling helpless. Some would even cry.
01:01As one of the largest food producers in the world, India harvests more than 300 million metric tons of fruit and vegetables each year.
01:13But a large proportion never makes it out to our plates.
01:17That's mainly due to produce going bad due to a lack of storage facilities in a hot country.
01:24For the average farmer, it means income loss even when a harvest is good.
01:29But a pilot project started by the Rurkala Municipal Corporation has a solution.
01:34It has set up solar-powered mini-cold rooms across the city. They're run by women like Tulasi Dash.
01:41We charge just 3 rupees or 3 euro cents per day for each crate.
01:47That's a small amount and very affordable for farmers.
01:50Before, they used to lose hundreds of rupees worth of produce due to spoilage.
01:55That was disheartening. Now, for just 3 rupees, they have less waste and earn more.
02:04The localised model aims to disrupt the national coal chain market which is still monopolised by wholesalers and middlemen.
02:12With a minimal charge and easy access, it is specifically designed with the small-scale farmers in mind.
02:23This is a 30 metric ton cold room with three chambers, each set to a different temperature range.
02:30We have a list specifying the ideal temperature for each type of vegetable.
02:35And we store them accordingly in the respective chambers.
02:42The cold rooms run on solar power. This keeps them independent of the electricity grid which can be unreliable, says its managing director.
02:51The solar panels of all the five sets cumulative is around 80 kilowatt.
02:56So, per year, there is a saving of around one lakh unit. One lakh unit saving is done.
03:03Yeah.
03:04These cold storages are, you can see it is a reliable cold storage with 24-7 supply.
03:11Because in the daytime, it runs with the solar energy.
03:15And during the nighttime, it has a backup of thermal storage.
03:21And there are tricks to optimise the system, Tulasi Dash tells us.
03:25For instance, if tomatoes are picked along with their stems before storage, they stay fresh for longer.
03:34I assist and guide the farmers and vendors who come here,
03:37making them aware of the proper steps to follow while storing or removing vegetables from the cold room.
03:44It is still dark when Sumina Sonu Barla starts work.
03:48As part of the group running the cold storage units, today is her turn to collect vegetables from the local market and store them in the palm push market cold room.
03:59The cooperative is made up of 10 women. They take turns running operations. That means receiving produce from farmers, maintaining temperature logs, managing deliveries and running the organic community store.
04:13Before, we didn't have a secure income. Now, I have a regular salaried job. We started with 500 rupees or roughly 5 euros. Then 5,000 rupees. And now, we are making sales of about 700,000 rupees monthly.
04:32In the age of climate change, the need for a robust cold change ecosystem has become even more urgent, especially for farmers who are the hardest hit.
04:55This project, supported by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, offers some respite to the city of Roorkela.
05:10Across its five markets, more than 1,500 farmers have access to the cold rooms. Around 500 use them regularly.
05:17A UNDP survey reports that over the last four years, food wastage in Roorkela has dropped by a third. Another study shows that farmers' incomes have risen in the region.
05:29And behind these promising results, a small group of women are hard at work, supporting both themselves and the smallholders in their corner of the country.
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