A Little More Time for a Farmer’s Harvest

For a farmer, harvest day should be a moment of satisfaction.

But in Bhutan, getting produce out of the field is only one part of the journey. Fruits and vegetables are perishable, and without adequate storage, farmers can lose the value of their harvest before it reaches the consumer. It is estimated that around half of Bhutan’s fruits and vegetables are lost annually because of weaknesses in post-harvest systems.

At the National Post Harvest Centre in Paro, a small solar-powered facility is now helping demonstrate a different possibility. In April 2024, Bhutan inaugurated a 5-metric-tonne solar-powered cold storage facility, established through collaboration between the Royal Government of Bhutan and the International Solar Alliance. The facility is movable and is being used to test the storage of agricultural products and share the results with farmers.

So why does a cold room matter to a farmer?

Because harvest and sale do not always happen at the same time. Without adequate storage, a farmer may have little choice but to sell quickly, even when prices are low, because waiting can mean losing the produce altogether.

So, cold storage creates something surprisingly valuable: Time.

Time to hold produce. Time to organise transport. Time to find a market. And potentially, time to negotiate a better price.

The facility is powered by solar energy, reducing its dependence on conventional electricity while demonstrating how renewable energy can be integrated into agricultural infrastructure. ISA has also supported a similar solar cold-storage facility in Zhemgang and is working with Bhutan on a National Solar Energy Roadmap, regulatory support and has established a Solar Technology Application Resource Centre (STAR-C) at the College of Science and Technology.

The ambition is therefore bigger than a cold room. It is about demonstrating how solar can become part of Bhutan’s agricultural value chain, from the farm to storage, markets and food security.