mid-day turns 41: Coolest of the crop

Updated On: 13 July, 2020 03:44 AM IST | Mumbai | Sukanya Datta

With markets shutting and farmers selling harvest at throwaway prices due to lack of storage and transport, a vegetable cooler and an e-mandi idea by IIT-Bombay alumni come to the rescue

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The Subjee Cooler can store vegetables and fruits for up to a week and works on the principle of evaporative cooling. Farmers with subjee coolers have managed to sell their veggies at nearly 30 per cent higher prices

Vikash Jha, Gunvant Nehete and Sharayu Kulkarni
Founders, RuKart

The team's Subjee Coolers preserved produce during lockdown, and portal allowed direct-to-customer sale

Small-scale farmers, who had been harvesting their rabi crop with the hope of a good turnover, were hit by the lack of transport facilities, labour and access to storage when India shuttered in March. Desperate to avoid wastage and put food on the table, many sold the harvested produce at throwaway prices. "Most smallholders don't have the means to own industrial storage facilities," says Vikash Jha, co-founder of RuKart Technologies, a Kalyan-based start-up that had helped build Subjee Coolers in Odisha, Maharashtra and Bihar. While farmers with no access to storage took to distress sale, those who had invested in these coolers were able to wait for the situation to stabilise and sell at nearly 30 per cent higher prices. Jha, 29, who hails from a family of farmers in Madhubani district of Bihar, along with fellow IIT Bombay mates and co-founders of RuKart, Gunvant Nehete and Sharayu Kulkarni, developed a web-based platform to help farmers who had invested in their technology in the lockdown. The portal allowed them to sell their produce to customers directly, without additional charges.

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