Best served chilled: green tech keeps the cool on India's dairy farms – photo essay

Photographer Prashanth Vishwanathan captured a network of community dairies helping off-grid farmers in Maharashtra keep milk fresh as temperatures rise. All pictures are from Climate Visuals and Ashden

As global temperatures climb, a lack of refrigeration makes a big impact on people trying to make a living from farming. Especially dairy farms.

There are more than 75 million smallholder dairy farmers in India. Most are in off-grid areas without refrigeration, or reliant on expensive and polluting diesel generators. This locks people out of national supply chains, and farmers have to spend hours transporting milk to markets, or sell at a lower price to middlemen. In Maharashtra, western India, a network of community dairies has been set up, using sustainable refrigeration technology, where people can bring their milk to be tested, chilled, and sold on.