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Great talk, interesting business model and a tripple bottom line, what else do you need? Find out more on: http://www.ecofuelafrica.com/

Not only local food is hot also food production in Africa is getting more attention (finally). Rachel Zedeck from the Backpackfarm gave her answer to the question I raised before: How to reach and inspire small holder farmers in Africa, so their yields and profits grow sustainably. 

The Backpack Farm initiative is best described as an innovative approach to:

•  Smallholder farmers access to affordable eco-friendly farming agri-tech inputs and training;
• Materially improve crop yields to semi-commercial levels of production;
• Improves the income of smallholder farmers and rural communities - in particular women, who produce 80% of food reserves in East Africa;
• In combination with training and state of art drip irrigation, improves access to and management of water in rural communities especially in arid lands;
• Provides greater nutrition to populations suffering from nutritional deficits;
• Develops sustainable agriculture value chains capable of supporting local, regional and international marketplaces;
• By reducing time in the field to manage and water crops, improves literacy and education of women and the girl child.

First of all it’s a company, so when their business model works they can scale and scale and scale. Not like a non for profit which alsways has to wait for more funding. Second the company is focussed on raising the profits of farmers, through higher yields (training, equipment, seeds etc.) and better market access. Because if your a farmer and you have doubled your yield but you can’t sell it anywhere it’s pretty useless. 

I think these kind of companies have huge potential. If it scales enough the coming years, the impact will be enormous. It could actually improve the lives of millions of farmers and make most of the hunger disasters a thing of the past. 

How to reach and inspire millions and millions of small holder farmers in Africa? This is probably the holy grail of agriculture.

Because there is so much knowledge available on how to easily double the yields of small holders farmers (conservation agriculture, drip irrigation, agroforestry). Without the need for expensive fertilizer or GMOs. Also methods and concepts exists to process food and so farmers can add value and are more profitable. 

And don’t forget all the local knowledge which is available. There are methods practised by farmers in a specific village for hundreds of years but that method never went viral and never made it past the next village. 

How can you unlock all this knowledge and make it available to people who can use it? How can you finally engage with enough farmers to have an impact? (this never happened so far, except maybe for agro forestry in Niger).

The answer is new communication technologies and especially mobile phones and mobile internet (in a few years). This provides you with a platform to reach almost everyone in Africa.

But now you need the right language to engage with small holder farmers. A group from the university of Illinois claims they found the answer: animations. I don’t know it’s the ultimate answer, but it’s something that can scale and definitely can have an impact. 

Find out more

Business models are really one of my passions. Especially when they involved sustainable energy, food etc. So when I came across Indigo a few weeks ago I decided to write a blog post about it. (find it here). I thought their business model was pretty unique until a few days ago when I discovered Simpa Networks.

As you can see in the video above, they use the same business model with a few important twists:

• First they only deal with bigger systems (the systems do not just provide lighting but could also power other domestic appliances)
• Second, after a client made enough repayments the system unlocks forever. 

This is a very interesting approach because of scalability and bringing down the initial costs of bigger solar systems in the developing world. 

Conclusion: a company to watch!

Find out more in an article at Fast Company

IndiGo is a solar company trying a new business model: ‘pay as you go’ in Kenya.

They install the system at your home (with LED lights and the possibility to recharge a mobile phone).

To get power you:

1. buy a scratch card which has a number on it
2. send a text with that number and you receive a code via sms
3. you type that code into your IndiGo system and you have power (two solar lights and a re-charger for your mobile phone) for for a day or a week or a month (depending on the amount you paid)

If you have ever experienced the darkness of no lights in Africa, you will understand what a difference a solar light can make. One of the problems is the initial investment, most people can’t afford to pay 30-40 dollars upfront. Even if it’s much cheaper in the long term compared to a kerosone lamp (In Cambodia, for example, villagers can buy a solar lantern at US$25 and use it for two years without any extra costs, where their previous spending on kerosene for lighting was about $2.5 per month, or $30 per year. In Kenya a solar kit that provides bright light or powers a radio or cell phone costs under $30 at retail stores. By switching to this kit Kenyans can save $120 per year on kerosene lighting, radio batteries and cell phone recharging fees. from the article Delivering Solar to a distribution cursed market by Yotam Ariel)

IndiGo offers an elegant solution to this problem because you don’t have to pay anything upfront. You just pay for your energy. I’m very curious how this pilot will work out and if they are able to scale this to a level where it has impact.

Find out more on the website of IndiGo