Energy efficient technologies
Improved stoves for drying herbs and fruits can help save fuelwood and protect peoples´ health from hazardous smoke.
Summarised
- Large consumption of fuelwood leads to deforestation and forest degradation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya.
- Some products such as cardamom are produced inefficiently leading to more use of fuelwood and health risks for people involved in the production.
- The traditional way of drying cardamom and other products can be improved.
- The dependency on fuelwood remains high as long as renewable energy sources are more expensive and less practical.
What is the issue?
Cardamom production is common in parts of the Hindu Kush Himalaya. The cardamom is harvested in November and is traditionally dried in a firewood stove called Bhatti before being sold.
The process creates a lot of heat and smoke. It takes 24 hours and requires constant supply of fuelwood and raking of the cardamom for uniform drying. The traditional way of drying cardamom utilizes at maximum 15% of the energy in the fuelwood. A lot of fuelwood is wasted, adding to the ongoing deforestation and forest degradation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. Women are often responsible for collecting fuelwood, which is very hard physical work that takes a lot of time. It exposes people involved in the process to hazardous smoke that negatively affect their health. And the end-product, the dried cardamom, does not hold a high quality.
What is the solution?
The traditional Bhatti can be improved by channeling smoke to the sides using vents or chimneys. In this way the smoke is not raising up through the drying cardamom pods and people looking after the drying process is far less exposed to smoke. This solution also leads to more efficient heat circulation in the oven, which reduces the amount of fuelwood needed. This also shorten the drying process to about 10-12 hours instead of 24.
Are there any challenges?
Improved Bhattis significantly reduces the amount of fuelwood and the health hazards related to drying cardamom. Nevertheless, they only address cause for the over-consumption of fuelwood. The long-term, sustainable solution would be to transition away from burning biomass to using renewable energy for both household and value chain use. Solar dryers for fruits or vegetables can contribute to the energy shift, but solutions need to be affordable and easy to maintain. Incentives are important to ensure wider use of those solutions, especially for people living in remote part of the Hindu Kush Himalaya.
