Why Didn't Indian Farmers Warm Up To The Idea Of Zero Energy Cold Storage Chambers?
Low-cost, low electricity storage units were touted as a solution for post-harvest losses. Four decades later, farmers have still not adopted it and all claims were merely on paper, Shuchita Jha finds
India is the world’s second largest agricultural producer. Yet millions of tonnes of food is lost between the farm and the market.
In 2023, post-harvest losses in India amounted to 74 million tonnes– which is 22% of total foodgrain produced in the country and 10% of total output if we put together foodgrain and horticulture (fruits and vegetables) production in India in 2022-23. This is 8% of total global food waste.
A 2022 study by NABCONS, NABARD’s wholly-owned subsidiary providing expert consultancy in agriculture, rural development, and allied sectors like food processing and infrastructure, says that while grain and crop cultivation in the country rose by 23% between 2015 and 2022, post-harvest losses could only be reduced by 1%.
These losses occur after harvest because farmers do not have access to cold chains or other low-cost storage solutions to increase the longevity of their perishable produce.
In 2022 alone, post-harvest losses resulted in a wastage of about 5%-13% of fruits and vegetables and 3%-7% of other crops, leading to a financial drain of Rs 1.5 lakh crores, approximately 2.3% of the gross domestic product.
The small and medium farmers, with less than two hectares of land to cultivate, in remote villages – who form 86% of all farmers in India - cannot afford to store their produce in cold storages, which are expensive and made for bulk storage.
The cost of storing vegetables, such as potatoes, in a cold storage can range from Rs 250 per quintal to Rs 270 per quintal a month, depending on the location. The rent can go up to Rs 290-Rs 300 per quintal a month for sweet potatoes, tomatoes and other leafy vegetables that require strict temperature control.
And in practice, farmers are billed for a minimum of three months, even if they need space for just a couple of weeks. For many, this means paying around Rs 2,500-Rs3,000 a month, a price that often exceeds their sowing expense.
To address this gap, scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi developed the Zero Energy Cool Chambers or ZECCs in 1983.
The institute tweaked the traditional mud-and-brick storage systems by turning them into double-walled chambers using the principle of evaporative cooling, Former Director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), Dr Ashok Kumar Singh says.
These double-walled brick structures are filled with sand or dry grass which are sprinkled with water to bring down their temperature. As the water evaporates, the temperature inside drops.
Calling them “game-changing solutions”, the institute claimed they promoted ZECCs as a low-cost solution that can be installed and run without electricity. Even in areas where temperatures reach 45 degree Celsius, the IARI claims that ZECC maintains 27 degrees to 30 degrees Celsius.
“While they were demonstrated to be effective, and the government tried to popularise them many years later, I am not sure if they took off at a large scale among farmers,” Dr Ashok says.
On paper, the solution is well-suited for small and medium farmers but decades later, adoption remains negligible.
Why ZECCs failed to scale
India had 8,600 cold storage facilities with a capacity of 39.4 million metric tonnes, a 2024 study shows. Of these 70% were dedicated to storing potatoes over other fruits and vegetables. But most of them were outdated, with high energy demands that increased their operation costs which most often passed on to farmers.
In the last decade, the IARI encouraged farmers to build ZECCs on or near their farms to store fruits and vegetables for small durations.
But practical challenges, including limited awareness, resource scarcity, and structural design prevented them from adopting ZECCs at large scale.
Harinaam Singh Varma, a farmer leader based in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, said that he has not seen ZECCs in Central Uttar Pradesh.
“Had this been a profitable solution, I think we might have seen some ZECCs on the ground,” he says. “Today, farmers don’t rely on ‘jugaad’ [make-shift] solutions and prefer to either sell their products as soon as possible and if they can afford then opt for cold storage, rather than finding a low-cost low-electricity option.”
Nitya Sharma, Programme Manager at World Resources Institute (WRI), told UpBeat that she had heard from those at IARI and PUSA that the ZECCs hold potential for reducing post-harvest losses.
“The technology in itself is scientifically sound but practical challenges like making the structure with correct dimensions, availability of water, maintenance etc are factors that change the efficacy on ground,” she said.
She added that focused pilot testing under different on-ground conditions could help strengthen implementation.
Ajit Narvele, state secretary of the Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Mahasabha in Maharashtra says that farmers across his network in 23 districts have not heard of ZECCs as a viable option for cold storage of perishable produce.
He explains that farmers in the region prefer to sell their products in mandis instead of storing them which is why perhaps they did not seek out a storage solution. “Besides, perishables don’t have such a long shelf-life that they can be stored for more than one-two days.”
He says that potatoes and onions were the top two crops that needed to be stored before being taken to the mandi for sale. For these, farmers either prefer cold chains or a shed with exhaust fans and mesh.
For vegetables such as tomatoes, peas, cauliflowers, cabbages and other seasonal vegetables, farmers prefer to sell them as soon as they harvest them.
New tech finds urban users instead
However, Subjee Cooler designed by RuKart, based on the enhanced evaporative cooling with a seven-layer membrane-based cooling system that uses three to four litres of water per day, has been adopted by some urban retailers and B2B commerce platforms. The company has sold around 3,000 units to retailers, farmer producer organisations and some farmers.
Different kinds of coolers vary in price depending on capacity, with smaller units starting from Rs 8,000 and customised passive reefer vehicles costing up to Rs 1 lakh.
“We had developed this device for farmers but realised that farmers mostly look for subsidised government schemes. So we shifted our focus to urban users like quick commerce platforms, retailers and stores instead,” Vikash Jha, an alumnus of IIT Bombay and founder of RuKart tells Upbeat.
Among its clients is Sahaja Samrudha Organics, a farmer producer organisation in Karnataka, which has used six units over four years to store leafy vegetables and beans overnight before dispatching them to local supermarkets.
Another user, Ratnjbabu Nagabhairava, who runs Aarogya Aahayam, a fresh-cut fruit and vegetable service in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, said he stores fruits for up to four days in a 100-litre cooler. “There has been a considerable reduction in food waste,” he says.
Despite these examples, affordable and flexible storage options remain out of reach for many small farmers.
Behavioural pattern
Another reason for low adoption of ZECCs is the farmer’s behaviour.
Nihar Priyadarshi , Lead at the Samunnati Foundation – that works to improve farmer incomes by helping them build a market-focus approach by integrating trade, finance, and climate-smart interventions, says that ZECCs were tried out between 2015-2017 but did not scale because farmers are usually in a rush to sell their produce.
This is more the case for small land holders as income from one harvest cycle funds the next cultivation cycle.
Nihar says that farmers in India do not have a “business mindset” and they operate with the idea of selling the produce as soon as possible even if it means selling it for a loss.
He adds that many farmers practice seasonal monocropping, leading to oversupply of certain vegetables.
“Small farmers cannot afford to pay six months’ rent to a cold storage facility if they need storage for just a week,” Nihar says. “Once they sell, storage becomes the buyer’s problem. Aggregators, who have access to capital, store produce and profit during lean seasons.”
To reduce post-harvest losses, the Union government allocated Rs 63,559 crore under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund in the 2020-2021 Budget to support pack-houses, silos and cold storage projects. The scheme includes 2,712 cold store projects.
However, Nihar feels that if the government wants to help farmers it should encourage community cold storage solutions that allow short-term and flexible rentals instead of pushing outdated make-shift solutions.
Theory versus reality
Research papers, particularly from parts of the Northeast, suggest that crops such as potatoes can be stored in ZECCs for up to 90 days, allowing farmers to sell in the off-season at higher prices. But farmers in central India say such results are difficult to replicate.
Nihar says that the “experiments that proved to be successful in the North East might have been so because the climate allows the system to function well”.
“In states like Maharashtra where temperatures reach over 40°C in summers, the evaporation is much faster, making it a tedious task to keep the walls of the chamber moist,” he says. “Water scarcity in many areas makes this a water-intensive technique, not feasible for many.”
Krishnapal Singh Sisodiya, 35, from Kilona village in Madhya Pradesh’s Agar Malwa district, experimented with ZECCs after reading about them. “I first tried underground pit storage in 2013, but the potatoes went bad. Then I built a ZECC in 2015. After heavy losses, I gave up potato farming,” he says.
He adds that maintaining the structure required regular cleaning, watering and repairs. “Farmers do not have the time to maintain such set-ups. Most prefer cold storage if they can afford it.”
The size and water requirement of ZECCs also vary depending on the quantity stored and local weather conditions. One paper suggests that storing 100 kg of produce requires around 400 bricks in a structure measuring roughly 165 cm by 115 cm. However, estimates of daily water requirements remain unclear which is a practical uncertainty that further complicates adoption.
Have you come across functional and effective zero energy, low cost storage solutions that can work for small farmers in rural India? Let us know.
It is hard to believe that India doesn’t yet have a low cost farm produce storage option. This is an immediate requirement given the increasing heat across the country in the summer months.
This story is published as part of the Hands of Transition initiative, which connects communities leading the transformation of food systems in India. Officially launched in 2025, Hands of Transition brings design, storytelling, and ground-up action together to ensure that the people most affected by climate and food insecurity are also the ones shaping the solutions, as both messengers and drivers of change.
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