On Sunday, I went with two other SELCO interns to a really rural area, in order to interview a number of different farmers about their lives in order to help deliver technology which meets the needs of the customers. The landscape & views of the Western Ghats was stunning!
We were trying to get their thoughts on two products, the solar dryer, and a mobile phone service that would send up to date market prices for produce, preventing them from being ripped off by middle-men. All of the households were very welcoming, and were keen to greet us with snacks and tea. After visiting a few houses I felt very full!
The mobile phone service was perceived as a good idea by most farmers, however the the capacity of the dryer was often too small for their use. A possible future project will be to make a dryer with a capacity of 50 - 100kg rather than 5kg. It was difficult discussing drying when everything around is damp from the monsoon rains. Being able to dry products in the monsoon was definitely perceived as a benefit.
The most incredible experience I had, was staying the night at one of the farmers houses, a friend of one of the local interns. They made us feel so welcome in their house (4 rooms) and fed us a non veg feast. Fish at 5pm, and chicken for dinner at 11. They kept 4 cows, a dozen chickens and owned just over an acre of land, which they grew coconuts, areca, and bananas. Their family lived a very happy, subsistence lifestyle; but a lifestyle which leaves them very vulnerable to outside influences like market price fluctuations and climate change. Only when I woke up, to the sound of a cockerel, did I really appreciate how rural their house was – I had to walk through 2 streams to get to their house.
I've designed a new smoke-proof heat collector and sent the design to be constructed. By Thursday I hope to have dried smoke-free bananas.
No comments:
Post a Comment