by Miriam Wangui
The KALRO Horticulture Research Institute hosted its annual Mkulima Open Week from March 6th to 7th, 2025, at the KALRO HRI grounds. The event was designed to educate and empower farmers by showcasing cutting-edge innovations and technologies in the horticultural sector. Key topics included fruit production, post-harvest technologies, propagation techniques, and nursery management all aimed at building resilient food systems for sustainable livelihoods.
The major highlight of the event was the unveiling of the new post-harvest training unit. Built with the support of the World Bank under the NAVCDP Banana Project, the unit was meant to provide farmers with valuable training on handling post-harvest produce, preserving it, extending its shelf life and helping to reduce post-harvest losses. This marked the beginning of a significant shift in post-harvest handling and storage of horticultural produce.
Dr. Charity explaining to visitors about the drying unit at the KALRRO HRI open week/ Photo courtesy of Miriam Wangui.
A major s for the project came from KALRO partners the Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TIKA) which provided various equipment for the post-harvest lab and training unit, which will play a crucial role in fruit and vegetable value addition. The equipment will be used for drying, processing, and ripening fruits and vegetables, enabling the production of products such as banana jam, tomato juice, plantain crisps, and natural juices.
Speaking during the open week, Dr. Charity Gathambiri, the lead post-harvest researcher, highlighted that one of the key innovations was the zero energy cooling unit which will help in reducing the post-harvest losses further in horticultural produce such as fruits and vegetables and enhance the sustainability and profitability of farmers’ produce.
“The zero energy cooling unit does not use energy and made with easily available materials bricks, water and sand. you make double brick walls and place sand in the middle, then keep watering the sand and then cover the sand with a material that is a poor conductor of heat, evaporation occurs, which helps maintain the temperatures at that unit at a lower temperature compared to the outside temperature therefore increasing the shelf life.” Explained the researcher.
In addition she mentioned the zero energy coolant takes care of losses that occur at the field level and can be used both in fruits, vegetables and herbs and spices.
Dr. Charity standing next to the zero energy cooling unit / Photo courtesy of Miriam Wangui.
On his part the institute Director KALRO HRI Dr. Joseph Njuguna mentioned the major challenge of Horticultural crops is the perishability of the produce. He further added that the newly built Post-harvest drier which uses solar energy will help dry produce such as fruits vegetables herbs and spices within 3 days
“This technology of preservation using zero energy cooling unit and the drier will reduce the waste by half as farmers will not have to worry if there is no ready market and can preserve their produce for even 6 months and will sell slowly when the market is available.” He further added.
He concluded that farmers at the grassroots should take advantage of KALRO events such as the Mkulima Open days where all researchers are around to interact with farmers and offer knowledge and also urged farmers to attend free training sessions at the institute in regards to handling produce and reducing post- harvest.
