Case study about field trial responses of the zero energy storage system

Abstract

A low cost ‘Zero Energy Cool Chamber (ZECC)’ has been developed for storing fruits and vegetables by usingpassive evaporative mechanism. This paper presents the results of a survey on the farmer’s opinion regarding the exploitationof zero energy storage system. This survey was conducted at Mymensingh district of Bangladesh from 2011 to 2012 and italso revealed that most of the farmers sell their produce to the middlemen just after the harvest. Lack of transportation facility, shortage of energy supply and lack of investment on storage, lower price of vegetables during the harvesting season, farmers in the rural areas often sell their products to the middleman or in the local market at low prices. They are not even able to get the return of invested money of cultivating vegetables or fruits. As a result, higher percentage of poverty level remains in farmer’s community. They demanded low cost storage system such as zero energy storage system which doesn’t require electricity for operating to store their agricultural produces.Keywords: agricultural produces, storage, farmer’s perception, quality, benefit, Bangladesh