Preservation of Agricultural Produce by Solar Drying

Natural open sun drying is widely used in most tropical countries to dry agricultural produce as a means of reducing their moisture content to avoid microbial activities that might cause deterioration of the produce to prolong their shelf-life for use during the off-season since agriculture in most tropical countries like Ghana is rain fed. Apart from the dried product been contaminated with dust, microorganism, insect and dirt the process is weather dependent. Improved dry techniques using and concentrating solar radiation to elevate temperatures to achieve have proved to be a better alternative to traditional open-air sun drying for agricultural produce and products. Solar drying technology has been successfully used to process,both exotic and indigenous vegetables, grains,root and tubers, plantain, meat and fish under sanitary conditions, zero energy cost and gave a high quality dried product in Ghana it saves time, requires less area or space to operate and as well protects the environment.