Solar solution for India’s dairy farmers

India is the largest milk producer in the world. But most producers are smallholders with just two or three cows – milk is a vital part of the income for around 80 million rural households.

But keeping milk cool can be tricky. Many rural producers don’t have access to chillers, and where they do they’re often powered by erratic and polluting diesel generators.

When milk goes off in the heat it means wasted food and lost income for the producer.

To address these problems, our colleagues in India have been helping farmers install solar-powered instant milk chillers. These prolong the milk’s shelf life (thereby protecting farmers’ income) without the diesel emissions.

Across Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, we’ve installed enough solar units to chill 26,000 litres of milk a day. This is part of our Climate Solutions Partnership with HSBC and the World Resources Institute.