Investigation on improved solar dryers for agriculture

Due to high cost of fossil fuels and uncertainty regarding future cost and availability, use of sun drying of various agriculture products, vegetables, fruits, fish, milk products, food products, etc. is being practiced largely since ancient times for preservation of agriculture products. Despite many disadvantages of natural drying, almost 80% of farmers are using open sun drying method for drying their crops. Open sun drying, in which the product is spread on ground in open, is the simplest and cheapest method of drying. But there are considerable losses associated with it. So, the advanced method of drying i.e., solar drying can also be used for drying the products and improve the quality. In this paper, comprehensive study of solar drying of various products is presented.