Africa Aquaculture Resource Center [AARC]

If I receive the Elevate Prize, I will use it to scale our program - a commercial smallholder aquaculture value chain - my solution to climate change, as follows:

1) Scale the pilot from the current [50] smallholders to [100] and invest in water extension services as follows: a) establish water-harvesting and storage facilities at the homesteads of the [100] outgrowers, b) complete the development works at the two dams and c) dig a borehole at the identified site - leading to more water for our smallholder-fish-farmers and surrounding communities to eliminate dependence on rain-fed agriculture.

2) Promote the use of the effluent water from the fish farms [which is rich in nutrients] as organic fertilizer to irrigate their land - raising the yields of the other food crops throughout the year - a saving from buying expensive fertilizer -improving food productivity through out the year.  

The program aims to address the adverse impact of climate-change, made worse by Covid-19 in five marginalized regions in Kenya.  The goal of the programme is to raise incomes, create jobs, improve food and nutritional security, drought resilience, access to water and healthcare, eliminate malnutrition and reliance on food-aid.

My passion is to use the power of technology to address social challenges. In 2009, I spearheaded the digital transformation of the smallholder-tea value-chain in Kenya Tea Development Agency Ltd - this initiative raised the incomes for the smallholder farmers by over 40% - making KTDA the first agribusiness [globally] to win the global ICT award by "'CIO Magazine' in the USA- an award recognizing significant social impact. 

As a woman, having watched my mother thrive as a KTDA smallholder-tea-grower, I can attest to the power and impact of a woman with an income they control directly.  My take away from KTDA is the three critical performance drivers of a smallholder operations - scale, costs and technology.

Our 5-target regions have a population of 5.9m, poverty level at 44.1% [totaling 2.6m poor people] - recipients of food aid during drought, with the highest stunted growth rate in Kenya at 48.5%. 

I have developed a high yielding technology that will intensify smallholder fish yields.  i will leverage smalholder outgrower system to scale production. This will raise incomes, improve food and nutrition security, create jobs and meet the development goals of the bottom 40% [our target group]. 

Globally, Kenya is ranked among the top-ten countries most affected by climate-change in terms of livelihoods, food-production, health and water availability.  One sector that can reverse the impact is fisheries.  However the dwindling wild catch and aquaculture, and growing population has left Kenya with a low annual fish-per-capita consumption of (3.1Kg) against Africa’s (10.0Kg) and the global average at (21Kg) – creating  a fish supply deficit of 400,000MT/year.  AARC is responding to this supply deficit. 

I developed a high-yielding semi-intensive aquaculture technology [branded FIAT] that will raise smallholder yields from the current 200Kg/Year [using earthen ponds] to and average of 9,000Kg/year, leveraging smallholder-farming-system to scale production. in addition we have developed "SamakiPro" - a home-grown fish production management system to drive operational excellence. 

AARC contracts the farmers, supplies FIATs, inputs and services.  The role of the farmer is to fatten the fish to market size in line with the outgrower contract. AARC then buys the fish, processes, markets and distributes. This ensures that our outgrowers have a reliable monthly-income.  

For our target group [the bottom 40%] in five marginalized regions- we will raise incomes, food and nutritional security, create jobs, improve resilience to drought, eradicate malnutrition and reliance on food-aid.  

We have developed a high yielding semi-intensive aquaculture technology that will raise the yields of smallholder farmers from 200Kg/year [using earthen ponds] to 9,000Kg/year.  AARC will leverage the smallholder farming system to scale production. This combination delivers a triple bottom line with economic returns, social impact and environmental sustainability as follows: 

Economic Returns:  If we meet our target of 3,000 outgrower in 5-years, AARC will produce 28,000MT, 2.5-fold the national aquaculture production. It will raise household income of our target group from $1,419 to $7,800/year -raising their food security - enabling them to access other essential services such as healthcare and education.  

Social Impact: With 3,000 farmers, AARC will create over 10,000 jobs with over 50,000 beneficiaries and ease access to affordable protein-rich diet throughout the year - doubling the annual per capita fish consumption of 9.0m Kenyans.

Environmental sustainability:  Investments in water harvesting and use of the the FIAT technology -a 'zero-waste' system where effluent-water from fish-farms [rich in nutrients] is used as organic fertilizer to raise production of other food crops - improving their drought resilience. In addition, introducing more fish in our diet [to replace goat/beef the main animal protein] will reduce GHG-emissions and carbon-footprint.    

We measure our impact along the following areas:

1) Livelihoods: Assuming we meet our target of 3,000 outgrowers by year-5 - each will be earning $7,800 /year from their fish farm. It will create 10,000 jobs -impacting 50,000 beneficiaries, raising our target group [bottom 40%] from 68% below to 48% above the national-average-poverty-incidence. 

2) Self-Empowered Women [SEW]: is our program that provides women with land, FIAT, inputs and services. With control over income from fish-farming, they can make decisions on food and non-food expenditure in the household, adopt more nutritious-diets and access essential services for their families including healthcare and education.

 3) Climate-resilient food security and nutrition impact:  With 3,000 farmers, total production will be ~28,000MT/year - the nutrition impact is that this will double the annual per capita fish consumption of 9m Kenyans.

 4) Climate resilient land and water-use: Cost-effective water management combined with use of the FIAT - a zero-waste system integrating use of effluent water as organic fertilizer- will improve drought resilience, raise productivity of other food crops throughout the year and eliminate reliance on rain-fed agriculture. Consequently, more fish in our diets to replace goat/beef will reduce GHG-emissions and ecological-footprint.