Food Security Guatemala Project #29146

Solar Fruit Dehydrators for MicroEntrepreneurs

by Appropriate Technology Collaborative

Solar Fruit Dehydrators for MicroEntrepreneurs

Project Report | Mar 12, 2020
New Prototype ready for construction and testing

By Monika Goforth | Executive Director

Cooperativa K'ux'ya organic production

Our second prototype of solar dehydrator is due to be built this April!

Engineering students at Universidad de Tecnologia Tulancingo, Mexico have been working with ATC to improve efficiency and standardize the drying capacity of the dehydrator.

As Cooperativa K’ux’ya continues using their dehydrators to create unique organic products for the local market around Lake Atitlan. Over the past year they have succeeded with a unique product for Guatemala – organic turmeric powder. Our business coaching helped them identify 5 health food stores around the shores of the Lake to bring their product to clients with little additional work. Low-income farmers in Guatemala work long hours and have a demanding 7-day schedule – whether its gathering firewood and water, caring for their crops and animals, or bringing their goods to market, life is not easy.

A solar dehydrator helps them make additional income with little additional labor and no extra energy consumption (no more firewood). Now, our second prototype will help them produce dried foods with a higher level of consistency regardless of the weather. The automated solar fans respond to the humidity and temperature monitors so that drying rates remain consistent throughout the day and night.

Standardization helps small-scale farmers compete in formal markets, selling organic products to formal health food stores, restaurants or super markets. This new solar dehydrator expands opportunities in business for organic farmers while protecting the environment – growing a trend in small-scale social business in Guatemala.

UTec and ATC Humidity and Temperature Monitor

ATC Utec Solar Dehydrator 3-D model

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Dec 16, 2019
The dehydrators are now producing new, unique products!

By Monika Goforth | Executive Director

Drying organic yucca for gluten-free flour

The Permaculture Cooperative of Quixaya is diversifying their products. You already heard about their herbal tea mixes and raw cookies, but there's much more they can use the dehydrators to produce! The agricultural plots of Quixaya grow a wide variety of foods to support their family nutrition without chemical inputs. Their plots are a mix of fish ponds, ducks, chickens and rabbits, corn, bananas, tumeric, yucca, taro, medicinal herbs and fruit trees.

As rainy season hit, it was time to harvest the yucca - a root of simple carbohydrates that grows easily in tropical areas. The President of the cooperative has strong ties to the eco-tourism market around Lake Atitlan, and has shown surprising creativity by leveraging the dehydrators to access this niche market. The cooperative found a way to produce gluten-free flour to sell to restaurants and shops. Simply by grating and drying the yucca, they can blend the dried flakes to create a local, organic gluten-free flour!

That's not all, they are doing the same thing with their tumeric! Tumeric is a medicinal root with anti-inflamatory and immune-boosting qualities - it also makes Indian food taste great. Organic tumeric has a high market value, and Quixaya has the abundant water and warm weather necessary to grow plenty of it! However, other tumeric producers sell their tumeric whole & raw. The dehydrators enable the cooperative to produce dry, ground tumeric powder locally, organically, and affordably.

That's the genious of appropriate technologies and good community engagement - a year into the project, the beneficiaries have taken ownership and gotten even more value out of the project through their own initiative, motivation and creativity.

Organic Tumeric from the permaculture collective

Drying tumeric in the dehydrator

Tumeric packaged and ready for the shops

grating yucca to dry into flour

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Sep 17, 2019
Learning about Drying Cardamom

By Monika Goforth | Executive Director

Project Coordinator, interviews cardamom drier

You may have already heard we are partnering with the University of Technology Tulancingo's Renewable Energy department to update the design of our solar dehydrator to produce a scaled, durable and lower cost technology that can be applied for market production. This is our next stage of our constant iteration of our appropriate technologies to increase their application in Guatemala's communities.

ATC's mission is to collect information on drying needs in communities across Guatemala in order to inform the design of our improved dehydrator.

From our past solar power installation projects with the rural communities of la Zona Reina, we met the communities that made a living on growing cardamom. Having been introduced to the world of cardamom production in this region, we realised there is great opportunity to create more environmentally sound and economically inclusive system for production. Guatemala is the world's largest exporter of cardamom - which is grown by small scale farmers on steep hillsides in the interior of Guatemala. Farmers sell their ripe cardamom pods to local driers in nearby villages for less than $1 per pound. The driers use firewood for 32 - 48 hours to dry 6,000 pounds of cardamom and then sell it to the exporters at more than triple the price.

We learned of some serious challenges to a solar powered design in this region:

Temperature needs to be consistent at 20 degrees celcius to obtain a high-value green cardamom. The heat is pumped through a 6m x 1m x 1m drying rack with a large fan that is powered by a gasoline generator. The biggest hurdle is lots of rain about 9 months of the year and that if the cardamom cools overnight it "goes white" (which may mean mold.)

The engineers at UTec are reviewing our findings now and we will be discussing whether we have the design capacity to address needs in the cardamom drying communities in central Guatemala. If solutions for this context require more funding, we will pitch the project in alliance with our partners, EcoLogic, to continue research and development of a drying solution that uses renewable energy.

We'll let you know at our next projet report what advancements we've come up with for our new solar dehydrator design. Thanks for your support!

The 6 meter drying racks, gasoline fan & woodfire

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