In today’s warming world, cooling underpins the ability of millions to escape poverty and hunger, in particular in the agricultural sector. India is one of the world’s largest food producers. However, 25 percent to 35 percent of food that is produced is wasted due to lack of proper refrigeration and other supply chain bottlenecks. Only 6 percent of food produced in India currently moves through the cold chain, compared to about 60 percent in developed countries.
Currently, there are barriers that prevent farmers from accessing sustainable cooling solutions to save food. These include high upfront investments costs for equipment; limited access to finance; uncertainty related to new technologies; limited technical know-how of cooling systems and hygrothermal sensor data; limited expertise in postharvest storage practices; and in some cases limited access to electricity. These barriers limit smallholder opportunities for growth and negatively influence the value of agricultural produce.
As part of the data.org global innovation challenge, BASE and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) will create an open access, data- science-based mobile application: Your Virtual Cold-Chain Assistant, to enable smallholders to access data and sustainable cooling facilities, with a financing solution, easy to access pre and post harvest expertise and market intelligence; made inclusive and accessible through an innovative servitisation business model. This project complements BASE’s Cooling as a Service Initiative and the efforts to leverage CaaS4Food.
The project will use various data inputs including weather and climate data, geographical location data, fresh-produce yields, hygrothermal cold-storage sensor data, forecasted remaining shelf life of produce and real-time market prices.
The objective of the program is to enable smallholders to make decisions on cooling based on lifecycle benefits, rather than upfront costs; have access to easy to use information so that they can make optimal decisions on produce and farm management; so that smallholders in India can break the negative cycle of poverty – while also improving food security, and minimising the impact of food production on the global climate.
This data-driven solution will provide smallholders with:
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