Amos Tauna
The Developmental Association for Renewable Energy in Nigeria, DARE, has launched the first solar powered Dryer Panel aimed at teaching farmers new scientific techniques and applying technological approaches in reducing waste of farm crops due to lack of processing machine in rural areas.
Speaking to newsmen on Monday shortly after introducing the Dryer panel to the villagers in Sabon Garin Ba’awa in Makarfi local government area of Kaduna State, northwest Nigeria, Mallam Yahaya Ahmed, director of the NGO in Nigeria said, “We introduce the solar powered Dryer to the rural farmers through and its revolving fund to find means of reducing the large number of food crops from damages and the lost of money as a result of damaged crops.
“The solar dryer panel is design to last for 25 years,and this will enable many rural farmers to benefit from it, they can use it to dry all their farm produce in both raining and dry season, such as Tomatoes,Pepper, Ginger, mangoes and others just for some hours, well dried in the panel.
“This panel help the farmers in so many ways from preventing food crops contacting all sort of diseases and dust which could be harmful to human beings, with the taste of the food crops remain as it is, because the solar panel enabled the crop dry easily without changing it natural teste
“We have studied yearly the large number of food crops being damaged, and how it keep on affecting the famers. We decided to come up with something new that could attract the farmers and save them from the yearly lost that they usually encountered,so as to open new doors to the process of overcoming the challenges of post-harvest lost in Nigeria.”
Responding on behalf of the farmers, Mallam Mohammed Isa, district head of Sabon Garin Ba’awa and a big time farmer, expressed delight with the drying machine saying that it would add value in the life of Nigerian farmer.
Malam Mohammed said, “We are really happy with this technology, we are going to do our best in making sure that we maintain it and provide all the security that is involved in making show that we protect it.”