How to process mango to prevent post-harvest losses.

In central Kenya, the Kambiti East Mango Self Help Group is using clean energy drying technology to reduce post-harvest waste and access new markets for a stronger community economy. Samuel is one of fifteen mango farmers in Kambiti East Mango Self Help Group, located in Murang'a County in central Kenya. Formed in late 2013, this group came together with the help of a local community-based organization (CBO) after struggling to find a market for their fruits. The project centered on decreasing the amount of post-harvest losses by sun drying their mango into mango leather. Samuel Munguti examines a handful of dried mangoes in Kambiti, Kenya. In 2015, Kambiti joined YieldWise – an initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation and implemented by TechnoServe in Kenya – with the aim of training more than 20,000 farmers on post-harvest loss prevention techniques, increasing market demand for mango by linking farmers to new buyers and finance, and piloting technologies to improve the storage and shelf life of mango. Through YieldWise, Kambiti's farmers participated in hands-on agronomy trainings to improve the quality of their mangoes. They trained us on how to take care of our mango trees, how to prune, how to harvest and they taught us how to use these fly traps. TechnoServe also connected Kambiti with Village Industrial Power (VIP), a social enterprise startup commercializing innovative clean-energy solutions for rural industries and communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa. As part of a pilot project, VIP provided Kambiti with a mobile power plant, valued at roughly $17,000, which uses agricultural waste as fuel, creating thermal, electrical and mechanical energy to transform crops into higher value products. Super-heated steam produced by this power plant dries these mangoes at record pace, significantly decreasing the amount of loss during the drying process. In fact, 30 kgs of mangoes can be dried within nine hours, whereas sun drying the same weight previously took 48 hours. more