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The Pabal Market occurs every Friday
and has in approximately 100 vendors.
The goods on sale are predominately
locally produced fruit and vegetables.
A lot of locally produced fruit and
vegetables also goes to larger markets.
For example, Mr. Eknat Pingley, a
local tomato and chilli farmer chooses
to sell all his produce in Pune. In
Pune he gets 10 Rs./kg for his tomatoes
as opposed to 5 Rs./kg in Pabal. The
journey takes 3 hours by truck. The
quality of produce that is demanded
in Pune is higher than in Pabal. To
compete and sell his entire crop Mr.
Pingley must ensure it is of the highest
standard possible. Having a cool storage
for his produce after harvest would
improve its freshness and quality.
The solution should be low-cost and
be implemented with the locally available
materials, tools, skills and suit
the local crops. It should also have
minimal, or preferably no, reliance
on electricity. Initially the aim
would be to have a community refrigeration
scheme for approximately 5 farmers,
requiring a space of 10x10x10ft, that
is cheap to run and easy to maintain.
The agricultural advisory body in
India has designed a refrigeration
system that passes water through a
sand-filled cavity between two red
brick walls. Dr. Vilas Kale, a farmer
from Ghodegaon, has modified the design
to make it larger and with enough
headroom to stand up in it.
The refrigeration rooms
The walls are made by using standard
9" long red bricks in rectangular
formation (see Fig. 2). The wall is
9" thick. By constructing the
wall in this manner there is a cavity
in the centre of each of the rectangular
formations and the offset of each
brick row allows a large interconnected
space inside the wall. The reason
for this kind of brickwork is to increase
the perpendicular, horizontal strength
allowing a larger internal space.
Sand is then poured from the top and
fills the entire cavity. Water is
intermittently pumped to the top and
allowed to run through the sand. The
walls are not plastered in order to
maintain the wall's porosity. The
wall extends 2 feet below ground level
with the same brickwork design to
act as foundation.
Brick layout
A sloped metal corrugated roof tops
the structure. In summer a polythene
mesh is place over the metal to reduce
the effect of the sun's heat on the
temperature of the room.
The system seems to operate by direct
heat transfer and may also use evaporative
cooling. Dr. Kale has found that his
cold store achieves a temperature
gradient of 6-8°C. Although the
system works it seems very wasteful
of water in a drought-prone area,
making it unsuitable for the Pabal
region.
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