Food Security Guatemala Project #29146

Solar Fruit Dehydrators for MicroEntrepreneurs

by Appropriate Technology Collaborative

Solar Fruit Dehydrators for MicroEntrepreneurs

Project Report | 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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