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Such a dryer can be built in one day for less than 70$! And you really can make money with it by selling the good quality Product!
Benefits of solar drying:
- Dried foods are tasty, nutritious, the nutritional value and flavor of food is only minimally affected by drying
- Dried foods are high in fiber and carbohydrates and low in fat, making them healthy food choices
- Vitamin A is retained during drying
- Storage space is minimal, easy-to-store
- Transportation costs are reduced; dried Products weigh only about 1/6 of the fresh food product
- The energy input is less than what is needed to freeze or can
- easy-to-prepare; solar food drying is a very simple skill
- protection of the drying products from contamination by animals or insects
- protection of rain
- Protection of pollution by dust etc.
- reduction of drying time (reduces changes through spoilage)
- longer storage of dried products (because of more complete drying)
- good product-quality
- can open new markets and income and is a good start-up technology
- You can have up to 50% more productivity in agriculture
but:
- more expensive than with direct sun drying (Solar dryer costs about 100 $)
- if you have huge quantities to dry you need big dryers
- fruits (apples, apricots, grapes, pineapples and banana taste great when dried, melon, plums,
beets, mangoes, dates, figs)
- vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, peppers, herbs, onions, squash, tomatoes, asparagus,
celery, potatoes, peas, carrots, peppers, cassava, yams, red cedar, mahogany)
- corn, maize, rise, cassava, cocoa
- fish, meat, mushrooms
- spices (dried chili peppers, garlic)
- medical plants
- tea, coffee, cacao, tobacco, cashew and macadamia, milk, hay, copra (kernel of the coconut)
- but also clothing, wool, kindling and also for treating timber
for coffee:
Conventional coffee dryers consume large amounts of wood and electricity to dry the beans after the washing
process. An estimated 16,000 acres of forest are destroyed to supply the firewood used to dry the coffee production each harvest.
The solar drying process gives small growers the capacity to dry their coffee beans themselves, which adds value to the product since dry beans are stable and much more valuable than beans that must be
sold wet
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