Powering Livelihoods In Agri-Value Chain

CoolCrop cools crops using renewable energy sources , especially the horticulture crops, as lack of cooling facilities farm gate cooling is the primary reason behind the estimated $2 Billion losses that affects fruits and vegetable sector of India. As the majority of the framers growing these crops are small and marginal we deliver our solutions in an easy pay as you go/subscription model to the farming communities and complement that with our marketing analytics application to enable farmers get more value per crop. Our open source virtual cold chain assistant further adds value by giving the farmers systems operating skills so that they can transform into efficient agribusiness owners.

We are addressing the post harvest losses that prevails in India across all agriculture crops but more specifically the highly perishable fruits and vegetables . Lack of affordable access to  appropriate farm gate level technologies is the key reason for huge majority of the $2 Billion post harvest loss phenomenon that prevails in this sector. This figure has been estimated by several national an international agencies working in the Indian.  agriculture space. 

Reducing post harvest losses will lead to more quality produce and better income levels to the farmers

Distributed Renewable Energy Powered Livelihoods is the key themes that many state governments are grappling with in India. Our solution addressees the triple problem of losses, livelihoods and climate change

Srinivas K Marella an experienced Energy Business Professional is leading this efforts . He is the COO of the CoolCrop

Our solution is innovative because we address the the three major challenges that affect most small holder farmers  in India regardless of crop, namely inability to aggregate into a collective , inability to to access post harvest technologies at farm gate affordably and inability to take informed decisions based on market prices. Our partnerships ensure that we delivery our solutions by adopting an integrated ecosystem approach

Our technology comprises of distributed cold storages powered by renewable energy , mostly solar & other local sources like biomass etc. Our digital technology intervention comprises an mobile application which we are co developing with BASE & EMPA as an open source tool called  Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant

Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant: India | BASE (energy-base.org)

"YOUR VCCA APP WILL ALLOW
FARMERS TO MONITOR THE
QUALITY OF THEIR CROPS IN
REAL-TIME AND PROVIDE ACCESS
TO TAILORED MARKET
INTELLIGENCE TO MAXIMISE
THEIR NET PROFIT, WHILE LEVERAGING
THE EXTENDED SHELF
LIFE ENABLED BY COOLING"https://energy-base.org/projec...

Improve Income levels of beneficiary farmers by 40% by creating and sharing value at farm gate using our distributed energy services &  technologies

Reduce post harvest losses by 30% at farmgate and contribute to the local Sustainable Development G & Climate Change mitigation Goals

In our  ongoing Apple & Potato value chain projects we are precisely mapping the social impact above goals and are putting in place a robust impact management process in place to track our technology interventions' impact over the next 2 years as part of our project deliverables & mandate

The agriculture supply chains have been badly impacted due to the Pandemic which refuses to fade away despite that we have had considerable traction to implement our solutions to benefit the apple & potato farmers. The work mis in progress and hope to address the key pain points that affects all the framing communities viz aggregation, affordability and market knowledge

Our unique Cooling As A Service  Business model and our ongoing collaborative work on Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant gives us the confidence and the learning opportunity to refine, fine tune and develop and scale our solutions across the diverse agroclimatic geographies of India and alter across South/South East  Asia 

We are team with a unique mix of technology ,energy business and renewable energy  modelling and analytics experience. 

Kendall is an alumni if MIT (Masters & PHD )and has worked extensively to develop appropriate technologies for agri value chains in India 

Niraj is Graduate of TU, Berlin with project engineering expertise 

While Srinivas, the team lead for this project is Energy Business professional and a graduate of GE Energy's Global Experienced Commercial Leadership program , has worked extensively in India and led several global initiatives

Our team is a good blend of technology , academics and business experience with a proven track record to deploy solutions at scale. 

Our ongoing partnerships and collaborative projects  with several global organizations like GIZ, Germany , BASE, Switzerland(a UNEP funded Nor for profit) and Empa Switzerland( a Swiss Federal Govt Technology Institute) has further given us the confidence to work on our mission goals & objectives

Currently we have two women team members and the core team also comes with diverse background and language skills with the ability to communicate(read ,write and speak) in almost 80% of the languages widely spoken in India. As the primary end user beneficiaries are small holder farmers this further gives us a unique positioning strength. Going forward we are working on an initiative that aims to power livelihoods of Women Framers exclusively ,so as to develop women led micro agri-business enterprises

Developing  digital skill sets and enabling affordable access to renewable energy powered livelihood will be the key to transform the agriculture landscape in India , which provides employment to nearly 60% of the population directly and indirectly. Creating value at farmgate lies at the core of improving income levels of the farmers

We believe accessing global best practices, structures  and frameworks across disciplines is crucial to address any systemic challenge like the post harvest loss phenomenon  we are addressing in India.