Every year, 40-50 million tonnes of onions are thrown away. The lack of storage facilities is to blame for this waste. India is currently experiencing a five-thousand-tonne onion scarcity. Onion prices rise every year as a result of the scarcity.
With the exception of the months of July, August, and September, onions are grown all year in India and can be purchased fresh.
During these three months of scarcity, onions are stored in warehouses and supplied in order to maintain a steady supply. Traditionally, they have been stored in enormous quantities in oxygenated warehouses, where losses can vary from 20% to 40% due to poor pre-harvest and post-harvest practises.
To address this problem, many agritech companies are coming forward with their innovative storage startup ideas. One such agritech startup company is Godaam Innovations Private Limited. They are working towards the goal of reducing onion crop wastage by 100%.
As of now, they have come up with a solution of reducing onion crop wastage by 20-25%.
The team of Godaam Innovations connects with farmers with warehouses and installs their devices in those warehouses. Before installation, they also retrofit the warehouses and improve ventilation in them. The device is IoT-based and has sensors. IoT-based devices can connect wirelessly and they can also transmit data. These can also be monitored and controlled easily. After the installation of these devices, the Godaam team monitors the warehouses. When the rotting begins in the onion, some gases are emitted by it. These gases along with micro-climatic conditions of the warehouse are picked up by the sensors of these devices, which helps the farmers identify rotting. The farmers are notified by text messages which they can customize in their preferred languages. After being informed, the farmers can take necessary actions such as removing rotten crops or selling them in the market.
The farmers can enjoy this facility by paying just Rs. 10000 for 5 to 6 tonnes of onions. The device is also long-lasting and can monitor the crops for up to 5 to 6 years. This device is user-friendly, cost-effective, and can reduce wastage of onion crops by 20-25%.