An attempt to estimate the potential of solar crop drying for some selected cash crops in India has been made. The amount of cash crops that can be dried by solar dryers and the required aperture area of solar dryers have been estimated. Estimates for unit cost of solar drying for different crops have also been worked out. The potential of net fossil CO2 emissions mitigation due to the amounts of different fuels that would be saved by solar drying has been estimated along with the unit cost of CO2 emissions mitigation. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.