Effectiveness and Storability of Vegetables in Zero Energy Cool Chamber for the Women Vegetables Growers of Dungarpur District – A Case Study

Agriculture in India is characterized by small and marginal farmers and they constitute nearly 80 percent of the total land holdings. The cultivation of multiple crops under small land holdings results in regular produc tion of lesser quantities of vegetables, which the farmers cannot take to the market regularly, leading to a distress local sale of produce through the middleman. Facilities to store the produce for a shorter period and taking a bulk of commodity to the market would be viable option for them. The Zero energy cool chamber could be the best alternative to such women farmers having smaller holdings specially for short term on farm storage of perishable without any recurring expenditure on energy source, as it works on the principle of evaporative cooling. The present study on the effectiveness and storability of vegetables in zero energy cool chamber (ZECC) head proved its usefulness in extending storability and shelf life of vegetables, with reduction in temperature up to 9°C and increase in relative humanity by 18 percent could be achieved inside the chamber. The ZECC proved useful in storage and vegetables with minimum Physiological Loss in Weight, decay and the freshness was retained for 10 days in green leafy vegetables, 8 days in bottle guard, ridge guard, bhindi, 11 days in brinjal, bitter guard, radish, carrot 10 days and 90 days in callocacia and yam.