This poster provides updates for "Innovative potato storage for smallholder farmers in Bangladesh," an activity that is a component of a project by the International Potato Center (CIP) and World Vegetable Center on horticulture in Bangladesh. The larger project has the overall goal of assisting smallholder potato producers in Southern Bangladesh in improving profitability through access to effective, low-cost table and seed potato storage. This poster was presented by Michael Reid of the Horticulture Innovation Lab. Activity collaborators include: Ron Voss, Jim Thompson, Gordon Prain and Amrita Mukherjee.

Activity objectives:

• Improve the livelihood of small-scale potato farmers in southern Bangladesh by enabling them to store their own potatoes, thus reducing the cost of seed potatoes, and realizing a better price for their table (‘ware’) potatoes
• Demonstrate the value of cool storage for spreading the season of perishable vegetables

Activity strategy:

• We proposed the use of CoolBot storage units (which use a CoolBot controller to control a standard room Air Conditioner) to improve the usual ‘household’ storage of potatoes
• USAID requested a comparison with simple ‘ambient’ storage and ‘improved ambient’ storage systems designed by BRAC, a local NGO

Activity issues:

• Used imported insulated panels from India (time, cost, customs, transport issues)
• Electricity availability and reliability a major problem
• Set up one room to operate on solar power
• Had to change A/C units (first sourced unit didn’t work with the CoolBot controller)
• Rooms now working satisfactorily

This poster was part of the Horticulture Innovation Lab 2014 Annual Meeting, which took place March 17-21, 2014 in Hotel Real Intercontinental, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The poster is supplemented by an additional handout that describes innovative potato storage, selection of storage sites, and storage experiments.