Evaporative cooling in India
Practical Action
store tomatoes but after a week, the family started to use it to store different vegetables —
even carrots, which are not commonly consumed in this community.
The end of the pilot came during the monsoon festival when so many vegetables were
procured by the family that they could not store them in the pot.
Lessons for Other Practitioners
The rural poor are willing to invest in new technologies for their own benefit; though,
it is difficult to determine when and where a subsidy should be offered. In this case,
most of the product's price and all the associated transportation costs were not born
by the beneficiaries. In hindsight, the subsidy seemed unnecessary.
I was never able to create a sense of urgency to purchase the pot-in-pots. I have no
advice on how to do this, but it would help for the product to gain a critical mass in a
given community.
It is best to think several months ahead when implementing this in a new locale.
Several steps are required:
a. A potter needs to be found.
b. The potter needs to experiment with making the pot-in-pot.
c. Interest needs to be generated amongst the intended population.
d. The pots need to be prepared, boiled, and transported.
e. There should be a demonstration of how to set up the pot-in-pot.
f. Significant follow up needs to occur with each home.
4. For the above to occur in an uninterrupted manner, it is best to wait until the monsoon has
finished before the production process begins. Initial contacts could be made near the end of
the monsoon.
As stated in the introduction, the pot-in-pot is a viable, locally appropriate technology for
addressing nutrition issues throughout the world. This statement needs to be taken with some
caution, however.
This technology only saw a slow adoption by the community because it was adapted to the
community's needs and available resources. Similarly, anyone attempting this in another
location must have a comprehensive, grassroots understanding of the local community and
how the pot-in-pot would best serve the needs of the community and adopt the pot design
and implementation according to the needs.
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