Project Information

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Project Name Development of Hybrid Solar Dryer System for Food Processing

Has a Corporate No Name of the Entity -

Entity or Not
The Mekong River which starts to flow from China's Yushu and
pass through Myanmar, Lao, Thailand, Cambodia and ends at the Vietnam
by flowing into the South China Sea. It is known as the ninth longest river
Project in Asia and estimated to be 4,350 km long. It has been life source of 60
Introduction(within million people that live within the lower Mekong basin for decades. People
500 words） near the Mekong have been depended on it with farming, fishing, and used
as travel for trading. A few years later there has been other business such as
tourism and hydropower.
After a long time, the global warming has affect all the country
and natural resources in a bad way. More natural threats and disaster have
risen too. Mekong river is also one of the natural resources being affected
by climate changes. There has been several flooding and forest burning to
undeveloped rural regions which have been a threat to their life and career
and business. Since most of the Asia continent countries are dependent on
agriculture and fisheries, the climate change disaster are a big threat to
people depending to them. It also is a danger to the biodiversity of the river
which some fish or floral or tree species could go extinct.
Among the countries that is associated with Mekong river,
Myanmar country has been the most undeveloped country and its rural
region are more undeveloped. Mekong river is located in eastern side of

Myanmar which is between the Shan state and Lao along the boundary
border line of about 234 km long. Some Shan, Larhuu, and Inn ethnic
groups live along the river for their life. People in that region are dependent
 with agriculture and fish industry.
Due to illegal forest harvest and other illegal businesses, the forest
of Shan state and mountains are plains and the weather that have been calm
has been worse than before. Due to these, the weather around Mekong river
is disturbed and it continue to interrupt the farms and people's house with
heavy rains, flooding, and forest fire due to high temperatures. With these
threats there have been lots of people that were jobless and have hard time
to feed for their family. It causes lots of poverty in rural regions. Still people
do agriculture in the region for food supply and incomes but this situation
won't continue longer for the future.
People in the region need help to develop and escape from
poverty in order to improve their livings for future. If the people in the
region were to get a technology of improving their product of plant crops, it
will be a really lifesaving method. The Team has plan a project for methods
to improve it which is called "Development of Hybrid Solar Dryer System
for Dry Food Production of Crop Plants”. The goal of the project is to make
people in the Mekong Region to escape poverty and improve their green
food products and make food safety for consumption.

Along the region of Mekong River in Shan state, people depend on

agriculture more than fisheries. The main occupation of the villagers are mostly
farmers and only a few of them of fisher. The products of the regions are usually
Theme
tomatoes, garlics and gingers and sometimes coffee and grapes. These plant crops
Interpretation
（ project are sold in cities or for export to other countries. Still there are some problems
background during these process. Sometimes there are excessive rains that can ruin the
and quality of crops and can reduce the sales of these villagers. During
strategy） transportations of the goods, the crops can be spoiled due to fragility of them. Not
only these facts there are other factors that also reduce the quality of these crop
plants such as soil, fertilizer, moisture, and etc. Due to these facts, there has been
many lost for the income of farmers. Many farmers are now changing their career
to work in other countries, since farming makes less income and can't continue
for future. If this continues, Myanmar will have no more agriculture export
product and replaced by many imports. This will lead to the poverty of the whole
country.
Therefore these villagers will need a technology or a production
knowledge to help them get many benefits of farming and can save the remaining
agricultural export products. Shan state products are one of the export product
remaining of Myanmar. These products can be modified with a simple process
for more profits which is dry processing of crop plants. In Shan state of Mekong
Region, the environment is mostly sunny and cloudy in dry season but it rain
normally in the raining season. So the villagers cannot normally do drying
process of products. So therefore they need a technology to do so. Therefore this
project can solve the solution of this problem which is to build Hybrid Solar
Dryer with Biomass Energy.

Project Strategy
In order to achieve the goal of this project there are several steps and
activities needed to be done. These activities are as follows:

Phase 1 ( Communication)
-Conduct a survey about the environment of the community or village's needs,
interests, and problems.
-Conduct a research about all the crop plant products from the village or
community.
-Conduct a market research of Vegetables and crop plant of the village or
community.
-Introduce the local authorities to our project to the community or village.
-Request the locals for cooperation of the project.
-Request the respective NGOs and experts for cooperation to educate the villager
with training.

Phase 2 ( Training)
-Teach the locals about benefits and profits that can get from the process.
-Teach locals how to build the Solar Hybrid Dryer and Explain How it works. -
Conduct training with NGO partner.
-Explain the regulations and requirement of the dryer.
-Execute the drying progress with the new dryer for samples.

Phase 3 ( Marketing )
-Raise the product awareness for locals to easily trade.
-Introduce the markets and other export association to make sales of these
products.
-Cooperate with NGO for marketing routes and other promotion plan.
Phase 4 ( Evaluation )
-Sales
-Product Quality Report
-Weather and Moisture Report
-Monthly Report
-Next Plan ( Provide New technique )

Phase 4 ( Future Plan )

-Conduct a research about a method to reduce carbon dioxide reduction, or a new
method of hybrid dryer.
-Cooperate with more NGOs to do more workshop at other villages to make
development in village of Mekong effectively.
 Market Analysis

Most of the people at Shan state around Mekong Region depend on

agriculture. Mostly the market of trading vegetables and fruits are the most
popular there. They can’t still guarantee the freshness and the quality of their
products yet. The market of the vegetables and food production runs in the small
cycle which is it takes place around the region and exports some of the products
to the other cities. The price rates seems to be normal too. The amount of the
products are also small due to the villagers don’t have the enough skills of
growing vegetables. Instead of that trading business, there’re only a few family
business. Since the poor transportation system, most of the trading takes place
around the region.
Problem
Analysis
Feasibility
（ market
The feasibility of the process is depend on the people effort as the
analysis,
process is a bit complex and need effort. It needs the exact temperature
feasibility
controlled. The moisture must be measured frequently in order to make drying
analysis）
process of the food product. During raining weather, biomass energy must
achieve the require temperature too. These requirements can be achieved
properly.

Operation of Solar Hybrid Dryer

On a sunny day, it uses solar energy to dehydrate the crops at the
temperature of 46-47 degree Celsius. Number of hours needed to dehydrate is
depended on the crop type. Since the solar energy can’t be obtained during the
cloudy or rainy day, the heat energy is obtained by burning biomass (which is the
burning of the waste materials or leave and twigs) in a brick stove (biomass
chamber). Then the heat energy emitted from the chamber is collected to the
metal pipes. The pipes enter the drying chamber as a form of heater (the common
heater model in house) to raise the temperature of the chamber. There will be
several metals pipes needed to meet the required temperature which need to be
researched depending on the situations.

Photo referenced by https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-experimental-set-

up-of-a-hybrid-solar-dryer-in-UTP_fig1_281946131
 Marketing strategy
-Our goals and potentials can help the villagers who live in GMS region.
-Do advertising campaigns to increase awareness of our product and services by
media.
-Make the samples of our product and introduce it with the businessman.
-Pack the attractive package of the dry food by the villagers and export to the
marketing area.
-Sell our product with suitable price because the villagers can also purchase by
themselves.
-But sometimes the price setting will be set depend on the marketing area.
Project -The villagers who live in GMS region can be started as a family business and
Design later extent to become larger business.
(marketing
strategy,
Organization Framework
organizing
framework,
and budget)
 We can assume that we can raise the price of the raw tomatoes by
nearly 4 times the raw. We can assume that we can raise the price of the raw
garlics by nearly 6 times the raw. We can assume that we can raise the price of
the raw ginger by nearly 7 times the raw. We can Assume that we can raise the
price of the raw potato by nearly 4 times the raw.
 Promotion methods
The main step of product is the good promotion. Promotion
goal is called "Persuading". That's why we should make the development of
products by using the promotion methods. The educational workshop at the
villages for cooperation and providing necessary materials to build the
hybrid solar biomass dryer to the villages. Educational workshop
-The villagers at the region need to gather and attend the workshop in
order to learn the working principle of the system, how to build the hybrid
solar dryer and how to keep the whole system to run correctly.
-The gathering of the villagers are the most important part of the whole
process. People needs to learn the advantages of natural free energy (solar
energy) which is efficient and clean.
Project
Outlook -How the waste materials can be reusable and how they can increase the
(promotion incomes by using the hybrid solar dryer. Providing necessary materials
methods,
chance and -Showing the quality outcome products of the process to the villagers and
challenge) persuade to follow the process.
-Sales promotion can be directed at either the customer, sales staff or other
distribution members.
-The required materials must be provided to the villagers in order to carry
out the process since the materials will be difficult to find for the villagers
such as metal pipes, hybrid solar cells and plastic sheet with the resistance
to the climate changes.
SWOT analysis
Strength
-Recycling of waste materials as a form of biomass energy
-The color, aroma and texture of the products is better than that of sun
dying products

Weakness
-It needs specified temperature controlled in order to get the food
dehydrated
-It takes more effort than the production of sun drying food Opportunity
-New job opportunities for people living at the region Threat
-When the solar energy can’t be obtained, it uses the waste materials to
burn in the biomass chamber in order to get the necessary heat for drying of
food. The burning process leads to the emission of Carbon Dioxide. So it
might affect the pollution of the environment.
Challenges
-Make market routes for dry product
-Moisture and Ventilation control of the dryer.
-Temperature control of the biomass. -Water proof roof of the dryer.
 For advice of this project, it is an important innovative project that
can help the entire farmer's finances not only in Myanmar but also other
country associated with it. I can see this team's project can affect many
perspectives of locals who are in problems of poverty, jobs and education
in many great ways. This project will support a new business model that
the locals have never experienced to give them an economic mindset.
These students are cooperating with the NGO for the plans and
developments and research needed of this project. So I believe that this
project however is a workable project and also easy logic for locals to
understand. However it may need several trainings for the locals to
understand the standards and requirements of these process need. This
will surely improve not only farmer's business but also the whole country
business too. In conclusions, this has been the kind of development we
need for the country.

Suggestion
from
Supervisor

Assistant Lecture
Signature and Seal: Department of Physics
University of Yangon

2018 YY 10 MM 6 DD
 From my observation, this project is formulated with a good
startup idea. The students have proposed each project section
systematically and realistically. Their inspiration and superior
creativity will be able to achieve sustainable growth of green
production, green consumption and social development. I
believe that the knowledge they have acquired from their
Suggestion studies will be of great benefit for their professional
development as well as for Myanmar and Lancang-Mekong
from Region.
University

Signature and Seal：

2018 October 04

We acknowledge hereby that the Organizing Committee has the rights of

publicity, dissemination and publication of the work, and the right to introduce
the work and the author.

Signature and Seal：

2018 October 04