Greening The Palms with GAPROTECH

Oil palm cultivation is indigenous in West Africa, yet 70% of cultivation is done by smallholder-farmers who lack access to Technology to capture the full potential of the indigenous African crop compared to their colleagues in Asia. In Ghana, most oil palm farmers out of insubstantial economic gains from their smaller sized plantations, are abandoning farms for illegal mining and logging –destroying lands, rivers and forestation –threat to Climate & food security. So unlike in Asia where forests are been cleared for new palm plantations, the GAP model using our GAPROTECH is rather keeping existing uncontrolled African oil palm plantations alive (using technology) for higher yields, increasing farmers revenue and producing nutritious oils for consumers (Food & Industry) in Africa and the World. SEE: 

Bad practices in palm farming in West Africa has led to  Ghanaian governments over the past decades spending over  US$100million annually on palm oil imports, a situation that exist similarly in about 5 other African nations especially across West Africa. This makes it impossible for vegetable oil consumers (food and industries) in Ghana and Africa a s whole to get enough quality oils at affordable prices. The far reaching negative impacts on farmers cannot be overlooked. However, at GAP, we believe that this problem could be addressed if we could mobilize and empower farmers to save and best manage their farms with the requisite finance and best farm management practices as well as offering farmer’s access to appropriate post-harvest processing technology

Green Afro-Palms (GAP) was then formed in November 2014; on the agenda of Greening African Palms. GAP to solve this problem has simplified the value chain for oil palm cultivation and processing by using our locally designed innovative processing technology (GAP-Processing Technology: GAPROTECH, SEE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmVE1zQEHJQ) that plants in farmers communities increase oil palm yields of farmers and process the yields whilst protecting the environment.

GAP works by networking farmers (currently having about 1,000 smallholder farmers in Ghana) by providing training and technical know-how to optimizing their farming. GAP then operates an in-house technology (GAPROTECH) as a processing plant and commercial unit. At the processing plant, GAP sources (buys) palm fruit from the network of trained farmers and using the (GAPROTECH), we process 3 times more quantity & quality palm oils from the farmers fresh fruit bunches (FFBs). Also, under an in-house Commercial unit, GAP then sells the extracted oils to food and industrial users through a network of retailers. The GAP model works to help smallholder farmers revive their abandoned and undermanaged palm farms increasing their yields 2.5 times and then, assuring stressed farm lands & water bodies are reclaimed, while creating sustainable livelihood systems for market women traders. 

The customers for GAP’s model and the GAPROTECH’s usage are in two categories. To start with, the small holder farmers, these farmers benefit by gaining consistent demand for their oil palm fruits or farm yields at a much higher farm gate pricing given; 3 times more income than they used to make before. This aids the framers gain substantial capacity and good returns from their farms; a motivation that keeps them cultivating their farms preventing actions of slash and burn as well as illegal logging and mining that they engaged in earlier.

Second category customers are the consumers of the oils extracted from the farmer’s fruits. These consumers are served with our oils at consistent supply and the efficiency of the GAPROTECH system makes our oils relatively cheaper yet quality meeting both food and industrial usage. We presently have 500 retailers of our oils (85% women) on the Ghanaian local markets, and 20 Industrial oils consumer client. 

GAP’s GAPROTECH innovation is facilitating strong food supply chain security, and cost performance indicators all point to strong competitive advantages and highly favorable positioning on market for oil palm derivatives because of the integration successes achieved. On processing Farmers yields, GAP uses GAPROTECH; to convert solar energy into processing 250% more oils from same quantity of oil palm fruits, enabling consistent yields demand from farmers at higher prices aiding farmers earn 300% more incomes than before. The GAP-model implementing agro-tech and supply chain optimisation, ensures productive upward shift in yields for staple palm oil & processed kernels by 45% uplifts. 

Our competitors in Ghana are large oil palm companies (20% of Ghana’s oil palm production) e.g. TOPP, BOPP, GOPDC and Juaben Oil mills who operate on the value chain, but mostly concentrate on their owned plantations to produce oil products for mostly industrial consumption. Our operations on the other hand, makes us to increase smallholder farmer’s yields (3 times yields), helping us to get increased raw materials to process through our technology (GAPROTECH), which has similar efficiency as machinery of our competitors (2.5 times more extracted oils), to aid us get high quality oils at cheaper costs than previous methods used by smallholder farmers themselves.

Although demand for palm oils remains high globally and still in Africa, supply is falling because transaction costs make it too high for smallholder farmers to effectively participate in the market. Ghana like other West African oil palms producing countries, is unable to produce enough palm oil to meet local consumption demands, GAPs technology and innovative business model allows farmers to be assisted to stay in the market and even increase their output, an action, no-one else is doing in Ghana and across West Africa especially our integration model of using our in-house processing technology. 

Our Processing technology: GAPROTECH, is a portable technology locally designed and manufactured by ourselves as engineers in the formation of GAP: 3 engineers, 1 finance Officer. This technology (GAPROTECH) then allows us to utilize solar as source of energy, from farmers remote communities without national grids, to process 2.5 times more oils from same quantity of oil palm yields (fruits) , making us then to be able to purchase (demand) yields from farmers consistently at higher prices hence farmers earn 3 times more than initial processes. It is this technology that we use in producing our agro-products (Palm oil-Palmnol, Palm Kernel Nuts –PKN) which we sell to consumers on the markets, both food & industrial users of palm oils & kernels. SEE: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmVE1zQEHJQ),

Starting with 20 farmers on the GAPROTECH system in 2015, we expanded to 150 in 2016. First farmers were sensitized through physical visits to get on-board, however from 2017, we had expansion of farmers through testimonies of the earlier farmers and this grew farmers to 250 and since then has been increasing till now we serve over 500 farmers; matching 70% capacity of our GAPROTECH system. With oil consumers, we started in 2016 with 50 sales agents on local markets which then grew very fast to over 400 from 2019 and had it not been for covid-19, we might have grown beyond 500 sales agents.  SEE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6u8QswD-3E

GAP’s model using our in-house technology (GAPROTECH) has direct contribution for the reclamation of lands for sustainable cultivation of palms in Africa (West) In 5 years, GAP using GAPROTECH have:

• Searched and saved about 150,000 abandoned palm trees in Ghana-West Africa.
• Reclaimed over 400 hectares of stressed lands.
• Revived farming for over 500 Oil palm farmers.
• Produced over 400,000 liters of palm oils.
• Employed 100 people with 30 direct workers including cooks and farm hands on adopted farms 

Our direct contribution, is reclamation of stressed lands for sustainable cultivation of palms using regenerative farming methods, whilst assuring farmers of decent farm gate prices thus transforming the lives of at least twenty thousand families within these farming communities and the broader distribution network. Over 500 Smallholder farmers now earn a monthly average of about GHS1500 ($300), upon admission under our GAPROTECH operations, a 330% boost in earnings .The reinvestment multiplier effects have massive implications for eradication of child labour and the professionalization of agricultural labour, which circularly advances GAP’s objectives. With minimal input-investments, GAP using GAPROTECH in 5 years attained throughput of 1,050 tons palm yields, processed into 400,000 litres oils, 1,666 bags of kernel nuts, directly created 100 new jobs with 30 paid directly.

In long-term, the husbandry techniques being promoted under our operations, the integrated agro-management techniques steadily being introduced, the fair-payment schemes for farm produce sourcing, the local provision of industrial work (designing and using GAPROTECH), the steady progression to zero-waste, and the nutrition-related R&D (under way, provided sufficient capital is attracted) should become the dominant template for integrated agro-industrial development in the West African hinterlands with focus on environmental conservation. In past 5 years initial phase of GAP’s operations, we served 500 farmers saving 150,000 palm trees from falling; now imagine if we are aided to double or even triple our actions and operations?. 

The GAP using the GAPROTECH system serves now over 1000 farmers out of which 500 are consistent in the processing of their palm yields (fruits. In next year we aim to get to reach 2,500 additional farmers in oil palm in Ghana with this expected to grow to 5,000 farmers out of the 10,000 farmers who require efficient processing technology to assist them efficiently process their palm yields (fruits), to cause a boost in the palm oil productions from West Africa to the World.

[In next five years GAP seeks to salvage 800,000 more oil palm trees across West Africa (Ghana, Cote D’ivoire & Liberia), to reach 5,000 smallholder farmers and efficiently processing 9,050 tons oil palm yields into 5million litres of Palm oils for the food & industrial market. (Palmnol: https://www.gapworld.org/palmnol.php). This will be churning 200,000 bags of Kernels for industrial users, whilst creating 500 additional jobs.

Our scale up would require us to be securing partnerships with faming and rural development organisations to aid us add new sets of our GAPROTECH technology (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmVE1zQEHJQ), to be sited in additional palm farming regions in Ghana and across West Africa. An action aimed to address the demand deficit of $500m worth of palm oils in Africa and the over 20,000 smallholder palm farmers who lack access to processing technology in Africa.]

GAP had salvaged 28,000 palm trees in line with our 200,000 forecast and Inventory of fruits supply from 300 farmers had been prepared to be processed from February 2020 for the consumer market (Local and West Africa), until the lockdown effects of COVID-19.

GAP now without support, will only be able to operate at 20% capacity as result of COVID-19 effects, with challenges like:

1) Inability to conduct technical farm visits to reach more farmer-networks, due to break in the palm market cycle.

2) Shut down in agro-processing scheduled operations as working capital is locked up in fruits inventory (Dec-19: Feb-20); due to covid-19 lock down. This preventing expansion of the GAPROTECH system operations.

3) Laying-off of some field and operations staff (from 100 to about 20) & drop in number of our sales agents (from 500 women market traders to 100) as a result of low incomes generated from operations to absorb their salaries, stipends, and health insurances.

Lastly one major challenge anticipated in our GAPROTECH system for the next 5 years is: Resistance to Technology Integration & Change: Farmers and Market women traders resist our new ways of executing technology for their operations. Firstly, women market traders culturally resist our integration of e-commerce sales systems to conduct business with them as retailers of farm processed oils in the supply chain in our operations. Secondly, farmers resist adopting the use of mobile network as means of we mobilizing their fruits supply for the GAPROTECH systems’ operations. 

GAPs challenge have been capacity to reach over 10,000 additional farmers who request the GAPROTECH services & operations. These farmer requests and demand for palm oils on backdrop requires us to establish more GAPROTECH systems within other palm farming regions to aid farmers efficiently process their palms into consumer oils. Newly GAPROTECH systems, with improved efficiency & digital technology will aid us reach up the 10,000 farmers in 5 oil palm framing regions in Ghana, to save 900,000 palm trees to produce 1.2million liters of consumer’s oils in about 18months. Now imagine if we are aided to double or even triple our actions and operations to expand to 20,000 farmers, saving 1.8 million palm trees to be extracting 2.5m liters of oils in 3 years. This setup requires partnerships with organisations with community development and innovative food productions systems on their agenda. On this we seek collaboration on technology organisations like MIT to assist us improve the efficiency of GAPROTECH even further from current 20% oil extraction ratio to 23% and beyond, this to aid the farmers we serve much more efficient aiming to increase the quantity of oils they produce from same palm fruits simultaneously helping increase the incomes they make from their operations. This technology adoption is what excites us in us getting to apply for this SOLVE-MIT program so to get chance to expose our local home grown technology solution (GAPROTECH) for assistance to improve on it for its use for farmers in West Africa-Ghana. 

GAP has 100 total workers with 30 paid directly as full time workers. 20-part time workers, 40-farm hands contractors and 10-seasonal workers. 

Since 2014, when GAP started our GAPROTECH, Our founding team have grown our operations to this stage, even with no formal entrepreneurial education. All this while, our strength has been on our individual skills yoked from majority of the team’s background in mining production, which is used as our blueprint in decision makings, as there are high similarities comparing mining with farming & agro-processing operations (GAP-Model).

The founding Team are: Ing. Abubakari Bediako- Cofounder & COO- MSc Geo-Environmental Engineer- runs our farmer processing operations, insisting on zero-waste from our activities. Ing. Willie Mettle- Cofounder & Business Development. – MBA, background as Finance, Economics and Mine planning engineering, oversees economic analysis of our operations and manages the business model. Ing. Kwame Ababio- Cofounder & CEO- Engineer & member of Ghana Institute of Engineers, chairs the Senior Management Team (SMT) for strategic decisions, and oversees the execution of entire GAP operations.

We have had advisory members also: Anna Lowe -Advisory member, experienced startup-growth consultant from UK, having grown to maturity a couple of startups in Europe & Africa, she is our business growth advisor on all our strategic decisions. Professor Fosu Yankyera -Advisory member –Professor and senior lecturer, an expert in agronomy from Kwame Nkrumah Technology University (KNUST-Ghana), advises on our farmer’s adoption of best management practices (BMP) to guarantee increased and consistent yields. 

Our supporting organizations have been African Development Bank (AfDB) -Abidjan- who assisted us in the formulation of the GAP-GAPROTECH model with the farmers under the Agricultural development section of AfDB. BMCE Bank of Africa-Morocco also assisted us with business incubation in 2017 under their African Entrepreneurships Awards program and on top invested seed of $100,000 into the GAP-GAPROTECH model. RUFORUM-Uganda (regional University Forum of Agricultural Institutions) also supports us with the research information (R&D) into our operations, and all these supports have been in the past five years. However our current partner is Acumen; a non-profit impact investment organization based in USA with over 15 years’ experience in investing in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the United States. SEE: https://acumen.org. Acumen invests in businesses, leaders, and ideas to change the way the world tackles poverty. 

Green Afro-Palms (GAP): derived from “Greening African-Palms”, works by networking oil palm farmers to provide training and technical know-how on optimizing their farms outputs. After farmers’ increased outputs, GAP buys fruit yields from farmers and using an in-house developed processing technology (GAPROTECH), GAP extracts higher quantity & quality palm oils to be sold to food and industrial users in Ghana and West Africa via local markets women retailers. The GAP model works to revive farmers undermanaged palm farms, reclaiming stressed lands & water bodies, whilst creating sustainable livelihoods for local market women traders in palm oils supply chain.

GAP operates a financial system of revolving operational funds to provide farm technical support and purchase of farm produce from farmers. These farmer’s yields are then processed, using our GAPROTECH system, into palm oils which is supplied to both food & industrial users. The customers for GAP-GAPROTECH model are two categories; firstly, smallholder farmers who benefit from GAPs model by gaining consistent demand for their oil palm fruits at a much higher farm gate pricing 3 times more income than they made earlier.

Second category customers are Food & Industrial consumers of extracted palm oils from farmer’s fruits. These consumers directly aid GAP generate our revenue and in return get served with palm oils at consistent supply as efficiency of the GAPROTECH system makes our oils relatively cheaper meeting all requirements for both food and industrial usage. We presently have over 500 market retailers (85% women) and 100 Industrial oils consumer clients. 

In relation to this SOLVE program, our imagination is to make Africa resume her position as the Number 1 World supplier of palm oils, reversing current situation to the pleasant situation that existed 60 years back (1960s), making  African Farmers participate in Modern farming by using improved mechanized farming and processing technologies to uplift their livelihoods much as 200%. Now this could only be possible if we get technology advancement of what we presently deploy for farmers; (GAPROTECH) and for this reason we seek to join SOLVE to get partnership with MIT to aid us advance technologically.

The GAP-GAPROTECH founder from mining engineering school in Ghana developed passion to translate his engineering knowledge into finding solutions for increasing food production and improving livelihoods of smallholder farmers. In 2013, he bumped into a report (Master Plan Study for Oil Palm Industry in Ghana-MASDAR Report, 2011) by a British firm; suggesting the dwindling of Africa’s oil palm production due to majority (70%) of its cultivation  done by smallholder farmers who lack improved technologies. As a way if salvaging oil palm plantations, Kwame at 22yrs then, resolved to start the movement: Green Afro-Palms (GAP) commencing with 3 of his colleague engineers, to use engineering as a tool to proffer technology solutions for the over 10,000 smallholder West-African farmers in oil palm cultivation and processing; in the act of Greening African Palms, where the name Green Afro-Palms derives.

Our goal is to grow and scale our activities of assisting smallholder farmers in palm oil processing beyond Ghana to 3 other West African countries (Nigeria, Liberia, and Guinea). I seek now exposure, and training to aid me improve my knowledge for operations of agric with focus on farmers. My excitement is my ability to have used my engineering knowledge to directly provide solutions for my community, SEE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ababiokwame/. Now, we will want to have an opportunity to study from organizations with advanced technologies in processing machinery. My participation in this program seeks to upgrade my insight into advanced ways of executing agribusiness using new processing technology. This should aid me better structure our activities as a growing agro-company from Africa that aims to leverage processing technology in developing agriculture focusing on livelihoods of smallholder farmers to supply healthy food to consumers, aligned with SDG 1, 2, 8 & 13. I strongly believe in the power of knowledge and this forms my expectation for my application; to be exposed to how Internet of Things (IoT) can be implanted with processing plants to make it cheaper for smallholder farmers to gain access. I want to come back with knowledge to aid my team make our GAPROTECH that is 60% even cheaper and more portable even more cheaper and more efficient to aid us replicate it for other farmers in other oil processing such as coconut, soyabean and groundnut, who also face similar processing technology challenges.