It’s surprising to learn that in a country where thousands of people live below the poverty line and struggle to find their daily meals, close to 40 percent of food that is produced goes to waste. Why? Poor transportation and lack of proper storage facilities result in these perishable goods being disposed of before they even reach the markets. As reported by First Post, India loses almost one lakh crore rupees in post-harvest losses. That’s almost 10 percent of the budget allocation to the agriculture sector in 2017-18!
While the government works on how to improve and aid the supply chain, hundreds and thousands of farmers are deep in debt and struggling across the country. Dikshita Khullar, a class 12 student in Delhi’s GD Goenka Public School, saw this firsthand. Having lived on a farm with her family she saw the tremendous food wastage occurring around her, and the young innovator started researching ways she could help the farmers and food sellers.
After a few months of study and on-ground research, she realised that the need of the hour is a cost-effective storage system. She devised a ‘magic fridge’ that can be made with easily available raw materials and doesn’t require any electricity.
“What I learnt in my science classes in school, I simply started using that information into the making of the magic-fridge. I used the concept of passive evaporation and built my prototype with easily available materials so that the farmers don’t have to rely on costly things,” said Dikshita speaking to NDTV
Using bricks, sand, jute bags and bamboos she created a cooling system that can hold 120 kilograms of vegetables and can keep them fresh for 7 days. “The methodology is simple, the vegetable vendors have to water the chamber every 2-hours because that’s what will keep the inside area cool,” she explained.
The first prototype is set up in the village Sultanpur, Delhi, where she lives and one more in Manger village, Haryana. The cost of construction is an approximated INR 4000. She’s now working on improving her design and devising a method of watering that wouldn’t require someone to refill the chamber every two hours.
It’s young creative minds like Dikshita that we need more of; to put their education to good use, and come up with sustainable methods and innovations to solve everyday problems that have such harsh and large scale consequences, such as food wastage. We can’t wait to see what she has next in store.
Click here to learn more about Dikshita’s creation in the report by NDTV
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Feature image via NDTV