SolarFi

Smallholder farmers produce 70% of all the food consumed worldwide. In Africa, where more than 600 million people don’t have reliable access to energy, the lack of access to critical cold-storage infrastructure leads to smallholder farmers being forced to sell produce at throwaway prices to middlemen out of fear of post-harvest losses. SolarFi uses an innovative approach towards preserving fresh fruits and vegetables for smallholder farmers. Our portable solar-powered cold rooms help farmers store produce for longer giving them access to this important infrastructure at prices as low as $1 for a crate of fresh fruits. With higher yields of better quality produce, farmers will earn more money and residents in the community will pay less for food. More reliable and cost-efficient food supply chains will reduce the occurrence of issues common in Africa like famine and malnutrition, and will better prepare communities for disasters such as pandemics.

Smallholder farmers produce 70% of all the food consumed worldwide. In much of the developing world, postharvest losses are nearly 80% and the cold‐storage chain is virtually non‐existent due to the high cost of equipment and spotty electricity. Approaches that have been tried in the past including charcoal cold rooms have been devastating to the rural environment. Around 1.2 billion people have limited access to electricity, a crucial factor for cold-storage. In Africa, this figure stands at 600 million people. Although more people are gaining access to electricity at a faster rate than ever, this growth is unsustainable. Africans spend around 4% of their annual budget on unclean energy due to a lack of unsustainable energy resources, totaling US$30 billion dollars a year. Because fresh produce can perish very fast under ambient temperatures, temperature control alone extends the shelf life by weeks or even months. Quickly lowering produce temperature post-harvest extends shelf life by reducing metabolic activity and microbial growth. Because of a lack of access to such critical infrastructure, smallholder farmers often sell produce at throwaway prices to middlemen out of fear of post-harvest losses, which are estimated to be worth US $ 4 billion per year.

SolarFi uses an innovative approach towards preserving fresh fruits and vegetables for smallholder farmers, our portable solar-powered cold rooms help farmers to store produce for longer giving them access to this important infrastructure at prices as low as $1 via mobile money for a crate of fresh fruits. Our solution offers a one-stop turnkey portable off-grid toolkit for localized food production containing a complete ecosystem of smart farm technologies to enhance agricultural productivity, from 3kWp-10kWp solar power and micro-drip irrigation to solar-powered cold storage and IoT Smart farm Kit with Wi-Fi connectivity to increase smallholder farmers productivity by 200% and reduce water waste by 90% and enable more women and youth entrepreneurs create employment through our micro-franchising model for SolarFi's turnkey solution. The portable unit comes equipped with all of the core components needed to start and maintain a 1-acre farm ideal for African smallholder farmers. Our innovation also includes converting fruit peelings discarded into clean cooking fuel, through the exploitation of sugars in mango, banana, watermelon, orange, and papaya fruit peelings via microbial fermentation and eggshells as a source of bio-fuel which is a novel undertaking.

After a morning of hard work, fishermen and farmers in Africa have to dispose of produce they didn’t sell or consume by the end of day due to the lack of cold storage. By allowing them to store their leftovers, it will help both them progress and spend their days doing other activities since now they will be able to sell one days worth of goods for up to a week or more. It is truly inspiring that we will be able to reduce food waste in locations where malnutrition is stunting the growth of children. The current design for solar systems in Africa can provide sufficient power but is not very secure and leads to people stealing the solar panels off the roof. This has been a recurring problem with many solar panels being stolen and sold on the black market, or even used as tables throughout the towns. It has drastically decreased the number of solar panels donated to those towns by the USAID. Our solution is designed to prevent theft while increasing the power that can be produced, allowing these communities to preserve more produce and increase food security.

Our solution directly works on improving low-carbon cold chains to reduce food loss, which aligns with the goals of the Sustainable Food Systems challenge. Solar energy is renewable and has a very low carbon footprint as compared to fossil fuels. SolarFi’s portable, solar-powered cold rooms allow fresh produce to be preserved post-harvest, reducing losses that occur when farmers are forced to get rid of perished produce. Food can be transported farther distances regardless of climate, allowing for a more sustainable supply chain, improving food security, and higher earnings for smallholder farmers.

Our solution’s uniqueness is adopting a micro franchise model concept and integrating the model with village youth and women agents in transforming rural agriculture and farmers to increase their agribusiness efficiency making them have more predictable income-generating ventures and thus making them more prosperous while contributing greatly towards ending youth and women unemployment, food security and malnutrition in Africa. Through the micro franchise model, the solution empowers the youth and women to own and operate the solar-powered IoT Smart farm kits and the portable solar-powered cold storage units. There are companies such as Aldelano and Agriculture Solar that are selling solar-powered cold storage, but our solution implements these additional features with not only the produce in mind but also the smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs. Our innovation also includes converting fruit peelings discarded into clean cooking fuel, through the exploitation of sugars in mango, banana, watermelon, orange, and papaya fruit peelings via microbial fermentation and eggshells as a source of bio-fuel which is a novel undertaking. Our solar system design is also unique in that it is able to generate much more power with adjustable panel angles, and prevents the panels from being stolen which our competitors do not address.

Our technology for the cold storage containers will feature solar panels, so that solar energy can be converted and used to power the refrigeration feature to keep produce fresh while being transported. The containers will also use IoT technology that will be able to adjust the refrigeration settings based on outside weather conditions such as temperature and humidity. This connectivity to the Internet will also serve as a platform through which farmers can learn remotely online through Yara (a digital farming platform), engaging them with skills based training to improve their productivity. 

Solar powered refrigeration is becoming very common around the world, with many different companies offering these products for domestic and industrial use. IoT is being used increasingly for agricultural practices including precision farming: https://www.iotforall.com/iot-applications-in-agriculture/

Yara is an example of a company engaging digital farming to improve yield: https://www.yara.com/

We plan to design refrigerating containers that allow locals to rent lockers in order to store fresh meat and produce so that it can last much longer and does not go to waste in contrast to the current situation. After a morning of hard work, Fishermen and farmers will have to dispose of the produce they didn’t sell or consume by the end of day due to the lack of cold storage. By allowing them to store their leftovers, it will help both fishermen and farmers to progress and spend their days doing other activities since now they will be able to sell one days worth of goods for up to a week or more. It is truly inspiring that we will be able to reduce food waste in locations where malnutrition is stunting the grow of children. There are plenty of solar systems already in use throughout Africa to help power homes and small shops. The current design for these systems can provide sufficient power but is not very secure and leads to the opportunity for people to steal the solar panels off of the roof. This has been a recurring problem with many solar panels being stolen and sold on the black market, or even used as tables throughout the towns. It has drastically decreased the number of solar panels donated to those towns by the United States Aid for International Development. To help prevent this decrease in support, as well as to help jumpstart further projects with solar power potential, our team has been tasked to develop a new innovative design which will benefit the African communities. We were to design and fabricate a system that would be able to deploy solar panels to increase the surface area on the top of these containers. At the same time, the deployability was also to be used to help make the system anti-theft by having it all packed away at night when not in use.

Each unit will be shared between 3-4 smallholder farmers, enabling them to preserve their produce. They will earn more income, allowing them to expand their businesses and give their families a better quality of life. Suppliers will also have more fresh fruits and vegetables in stock, reducing food insecurity malnutrition within communities which would impact at least 500,000 people. In five years, we hope to implement in at least 30 different areas, spreading our impact to over 15 million people.

Within the next year, we hope to implement the pilot of our solution, train and educate the farmers that will be using the containers, and put in place a monitoring and evaluation program to assess the success of the project. We want to find out where improvements can be made before we expand our reach. Within the next five years, we hope to have refined our product and implemented in at least 30 different areas, impacting around 15 million people in communities affected by food insecurity. 

Our main barrier at the moment is financial. The key barrier to our technology’s success is attracting equipment financing to deploy more units within rural communities. There is also the challenge of the daily management of cash, as a cash-based business. We require monetary resources to be able to acquire the cooling units from our partner ZeroEnergy Building. We also need to cover costs for shipping, Internet equipment, and solar power banks. Another important note is that since the COVID-19 situation is so fluid, it is possible that additional lockdown and travel restrictions will make construction and implementation of our solution difficult. Because of this issue, we are also unable to send our team to Microsoft in Washington to develop our IoT technology, although we have already been invited and signed an NDA with them.

We are currently in the process of applying for many different funding programs and foundational grants. We have already been accepted to move forward to the second rounds for a few of them, and are waiting to hear back from many more. We are also in the process of working with our partners and wide network of connections in Africa to form equipment contracts and seek donations from interested parties. To address the cash accounting issue, we are working on having the business operate entirely through mobile money, which is already a common method of payment in many regions in Africa. As for the difficulties that have come up due to COVID-19, we are looking at it as a motivator to push our project along, since food security is becoming a widespread issue now more than ever. We are working to find partners who can construct and implement in-country to eliminate the need for travel, as well as source equipment locally. 

4 full-time

1 part-time

Our team has extensive knowledge in smallholder agribusiness, rural logistics, distribution, business processes, and technical skills in clean energy, solar cells, batteries, air conditioning, cold room design, and refrigeration. We have clear roles, responsibilities, and time commitments needed to be successful. We have a diverse professional background as such, we are able to quickly identify and respond to challenges that are likely to arise as the project is being implemented. Our CEO worked in the peace corp and was the General manager of the largest agriculture coop in Venezuela, subsequently he was the Director of International Trade at NY state. We also have key advisors that have spent 34 years at GE as an electrical engineer and was a principal engineer winning the Tesla award.  As we raise the money we will be able to recruit him to work full-time on our solution.

We are working with the African Business Centre for Developing Education (ABCDE), to provide skills-based training for smallholder farmers to improve their productivity and engage them with our project. We have also been working with Segu farms for advice and partnerships in our project implementation. Additionally, we have been working with Shaye Global, an international trade consultancy, who has been advising us on export for motion for farmers’ produce. We are also connected with Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, the former United Nations Under-Secretary-General, who is also helping us with his expertise in agricultural economics and sustainability. Zeroenergy is our manufacturing partner for solar-powered cold storage systems.

Solve’s goals align with ours because we want to focus on bringing technology-based solutions to solving pressing global issues that can impact millions, and ultimately disrupt the systems that allow poverty to exist. We believe that being selected to participate in Solve will give us the guidance we need to successfully launch and scale our project, by refining our business model, marketing campaign, and giving us new technological insights that could boost our project. The Solve community has the talent and resources we need to accelerate our impact. Beyond Solve, the potential to partner with other labs and faculty at MIT who have similar missions would greatly benefit us, and without Solve it would be hard to access these connections. 

We are still working on refining our business model, and the Solve community's experts could help give us insights on what kinds of approaches we can take. For our solution's technology, we are always looking for new partners who could help advance our concept or provide specific technologies that could allow our solution to have an even greater impact. We know that any good business needs a strong marketing campaign, and believe that partners with expertise in this area could help us reach a broader audience and give us the exposure we need to improve and implement our concept.

There are several faculty members and organizations at MIT that align with our goals and could help guide us. One of these is Dr. Timothy Swager’s lab in the chemistry department. They have worked on developing technology to reduce food waste in agricultural practices and have conducted many investigations on the topic. Another is the J-WAFS (Water and Food Systems Lab) who has been doing research on food systems internationally with an emphasis on the effects of climate change, and their perspective could be particularly interesting for our project. Additionally, the MIT D-LAB has recently done research on agricultural practices involving IoT and other advanced technology to advance systems in the developing world, and partnering with them would give us a lot of insight into the possibilities these technologies can bring to farms and beyond. Other organizations that we feel we could benefit from partnerships with include Food First, Groundswell International, Farm Africa, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. 

More and more refugees in African countries, such as South Sudanese refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are beginning to partake in farming activities. This is being amplified by funding from organizations such as the UNHCR to increase capacity building in agriculture for refugee farmers. Our solution will help increase productivity and decrease production loss for these refugee farmers by allowing them to preserve more fresh produce to sell and thus increasing their income. 

Expected outcomes include:

1.     Reduced food loss

2.     Opportunities for economic growth

3.     Financial inclusion

4.     Self-reliant communities independent from aid