The problem is quite simple: A few times a year there is loads of food in the Gambia. For example when the mangoes are ready to eat, this happens in a very short period of time. There is such an large amount of mangoes that many of them are not even eaten and rot away. This would not be such a problem if there was enough food trough the whole year. Sadly, this not the case. Other times of the year there no fruits and vegetables available because nothing grows those seasons. This causes a lot of hunger in Gambia. This is extra cruel because all the excess amounts of the other periods have rotten.
There are two ways of solving this problem. The first one is to import food when there are no fruits and vegetables available. This costs a lot of money and is not sustainable. This actually a very common solution in rich parts of the world. Gambia is not a rich country, on the contrary, it is very poor. Therefore this is not a good solution to the hunger problem.
The other solution is to preserve food. Fruits and vegetables can be preserved by drying them. This were our solution, a sustainable solar powered food dryer, comes in place.