Agriculture is vital to the economies of many developing countries, with smallholder farmers, who make up the vast majority of the agricultural workforce, depending on it for their livelihoods. However, 30 to 40 percent of produce is lost post-harvest due to weak cold chain infrastructure, compounded by issues like limited energy access, maintenance challenges, financing barriers, and lack of technical knowledge.
To tackle the pressing challenge of post-harvest losses and improve farmer livelihoods, BASE and Empa launched Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant (Your VCCA) in 2021. The initiative facilitates access to sustainable, smart cooling solutions for crop preservation and was initially piloted in India and later expanded to Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau. The approach of Your VCCA is based on three pillars:
The implementation of the Cooling-as-a-Service (CaaS) model, which enables smallholder farmers to access solar-powered cold rooms through a flexible, pay-per-use approach.
1. The use of the Coldtivate app, a mobile application developed as part of the initiative that facilitates inventory management, in storage produce shelf-life monitoring, project impact tracking, and provides market price forecasts. These features enhance the operational efficiency of cooling providers and enable farmers to make informed decisions regarding the optimal timing for selling their crops.
2. Capacity building: the initiative weaves in gender-sensitive training that boosts awareness on the benefits of cooling for crop preservation and strengthens cold chain practices among a wide range of users, from farmers and vendors to cooperatives and women’s self-help groups.
3. Having developed an end-to-end solution, encompassing feasibility studies, business modelling, digital cold room management, and training, Your VCCA is now increasingly focused on piloting the full scope of its projects in new countries, where establishing a cold room ecosystem in the agricultural sector has proven challenging and demands more targeted support.
In 2024, BASE initiated a collaboration for the piloting of a SolarFrost, an autonomous solar-powered cold room solution by Airwell, in Nineveh (Mosul), Iraq, as part of the Your VCCA initiative. The team provides technical assistance to Airwell and partners to tailor the CaaS model to a new context, enabling users to store their produce on a pay-per-use basis without upfront capital investment.
To support cold room operations, we deployed the Coldtivate mobile app, fully translated into Arabic and integrated with the SolarFrost sensors for real-time temperature monitoring of the cold room. This integration enables the calculation of Time-To-Pick-Up, an estimate of each crate’s remaining shelf-life that helps users plan sales and logistics more effectively.
The implementation is supported on the ground by Triangle Génération Humanitaire (TGH), a local NGO responsible for training and community engagement. The cold room will serve as a local hub for fresh produce storage and aggregation, helping connect small-scale producers with nearby markets.
The pilot, running through November 2025, will inform the potential scale-up of SolarFrost in the region. This initiative represents a first step toward strengthening cold chain infrastructure in Iraq using clean energy and digital tools tailored to local needs.
