Kenya turns to solar-powered cold storage to cut down on food waste

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00:00 Watermelons, avocados, fruits that perish just within a few days of being harvested.

00:05 Kenya's temperatures are to blame, and many don't have access to adequate cold storage

00:10 facilities.

00:12 Between 30 percent and 40 percent of produce spoils before it even reaches the market.

00:17 The major causes of post-harvest loss is how the produce is managed immediately after harvest.

00:28 For example, if you have cereals, have they been dried properly before you store it?

00:34 What facilities are you using for storage?

00:38 Cold rooms like these ones could help reduce losses.

00:42 This Kenyan company now offers rural farmers solar-powered mobile cold storage facilities.

00:48 It has won the backing of 12,000 farmers hoping to reduce post-harvest losses of fresh produce.

00:54 Solar energy is one of the free sources of energy that could reduce our operational costs.

00:59 So we opted to use solar, which enables us to deploy anywhere.

01:04 The company also buys products from farmers and connects them directly with large distributors,

01:09 making them less dependent on middlemen.

01:12 "They say they're coming to collect our harvests, but then they come late, and our oranges are

01:20 spoiled.

01:21 Now we have SocoFresh.

01:22 They're doing really well and they pay us on time."

01:26 The business has now extended its services to fish farmers, also highly dependent on

01:31 the cold chain.

01:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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