The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has been granted its first industrial design in India for a Solar-Powered Water Hyacinth Harvester developed by a team of scientists. According to ICRISAT, the harvester is simple, affordable, and can be efficiently managed by semi-skilled or unskilled personnel.
The solar-powered equipment, designed and fabricated in-house, is an affordable solution priced at under 2 lakh rupees making it ideal for rural farming communities that cannot afford sophisticated machinery costing 10 times as much.
It offers substantial benefits, including 50-60 per cent savings in cost, time, and labour, while prioritizing using clean energy. Director General-Interim of ICRISAT, Dr Stanford Blade has said the cost-effective harvester reflects ICRISAT’s dedication to creating environment-friendly solutions tailored to the needs of rural communities that are also technologically and economically sustainable.
Research Program Director of Resilient Farm and Food Systems, Dr ML Jat said ICRISAT has demonstrated that 72,000 kg of water hyacinth biomass can be mechanically harvested from a 3-acre pond in 2 to 3 days by a team of two or three people.