Solar Fruit Dehydrators for MicroEntrepreneurs

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.