UAE: Zayed Sustainability Prize empowers 60,000 farmers, 1,200 rural women in India

UAE: Zayed Sustainability Prize empowers 60,000 farmers, 1,200 rural women in India

Zayed Sustainability Prize, the UAE's pioneering global award for recognising excellence in sustainability, has empowered India-based startup Science for Society (S4S) Technologies to further help farmers and rural women cut down food waste and increase income.

Established in 2008, S4S Technologies recognised that a significant amount of farmers' produce goes to waste because they lack the means to preserve their harvest, do not have the experience to sell it on a wider scale, and lack technical knowledge of modern agricultural practices. To address this challenge, the startup created a novel solution – a solar food dehydrator – to convert food waste into non-perishable food ingredients that can be sold.

"What brought us together was solving the challenges of food wastage, poverty among smallholder farmers and gender inequality among rural women farmers," co-founder Nidhi Pant said while marking the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.

Using patented solar conduction dryer technology, farmers could avoid food waste and create a new revenue stream. The technology is electricity-free, delivering sustainable results while avoiding the problems caused by long power cuts.

The company's technology currently saves approximately 22,500 tonnes of produce from getting wasted each year, and avoids 300,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.

"We started