Abstracts Oral Presentations - Solar Food Processing Network

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International Solar Food Processing Conference 2009 Solar Food Processing Its Economic and Ecologic Value for India* C.L.Gupta # Preamble Processing of food, without losing its aroma, colour, texture or structure has always been of prime importance for food and more recently for herbal medicines and cosmetics. After all, Europe was initially attracted to India because of its spices and silks. India has woken to its potential rather late but PIO abroad are doing roaring business with nuts, herbs, spices and flowers and they all want solarization of their farms and processes. If we couple further the products to organic cultivation, solar processing and international standard biodegradable packaging, one is in premium products bracket for exports. International protocols for certification of such products are already operational. At home, the ecological value of solar processing in terms of empowerment through income generating livelihoods enterprises for equity and ecologic nature of renewable resources for energy quality and security with no carbon penalty, are of tremendous importance nationally. Work done so far India has been a pioneer in these efforts, but in a rather low key as in other areas. To my knowledge, the first such plant for drying of fruits was commissioned by Palni Hill Conservation Council at Kodaikanal [1] in early eighties. Gupta did the first roof top solar tea drying at Munnar[2]. Later Palaniappan took it up in a more sustained manner and developed solar drying industry for cardamom, tea, coffee, pulses, spices and fish in Tamilnadu and later in Ladakh, Phillipines and UAE [3]. The earlier work on drying of cereals such as paddy was economically not viable for the plants were operated for less than three weeks in an year because of cropping patterns *International Conference on Solar Food Processing, Barli Development Institute for Rural Women, M.P. India, 14-16 January, 2009. # Professor, Applied Sciences, Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry 605002. India. Email: solagni@auroville.org.in 34
International Solar Food Processing Conference 2009 Work ahead Multi product dryers are difficult to design but not impossible. Portable dryers, developed earlier for fisheries in Bay of Bengal Program of UNICEF, did not catch up but need reviving, evaluation and quality enhancement. Quality drying of herbs and nuts with incorporation of solar operated heat pumps [4] are yet to pick up in India and obviously are the next stage. Indian heat pumps are now available from 5 kW to 100 kW range and if the whole supply chain of foods so dried is organized properly, we will have a really good export line in tune with times[5]. Intellectual issues in food processing and drying systems are really challenging in terms of theory, systems and at products level and should be developed more vigorously than hitherto. It should be a mission mode effort like gasifiers, which incidentally could serve as the other system to solar in hybrid mode and also solve the problem of disposal/pollution caused by food processing residues as they could serve as feed stock, as briquettes or in loose form, for gasifiers. These areas need to be pursued vigorously. References 1. Jayakaran. PHCC Vegetables and fruits dryers at Batlagundu, India (Private Communication. 1983) 2. Gupta,C.L. Solar tea drying at Tata Tea, Valparai, Western Ghats,India in association with M/S Best and Crompton Ltd.(Private Communication.1982) 3.Palaniappan, Role of solar hot air system for food processing in C. and `Renewable Energy Technologies application to industries Subramanian, and agriculture’ (Ed.Palaniappan,C.etal) Narosa, New S.V. Delhi, India pp. 410 -21 (2001) 4. Britnell,Peter Development and application of Heat Pump Driers,Deptt. Sigley,Eroll of Primary Industries (Agribusiness),Queensland, (Coordinators) Australia (1994) 5. Milind,R. Use of heat pumps for drying (Private Communication 2007) Heat Pump Lab. IIT Bombay, Mumbai 35
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