Disrupting Hunger

We solve the problem of unsustainable farming by using sea salt and vegetable waste as complete fertilizer for our simplified hydroponics systems that uses 90% less water.Water and nutrients from sea salt and waste vegetable solution is delivered to the crops via plant responsive drip which has microscopic holes and releases water when crops ask for it without use of electricity,water and fertilizer (from sea salt and waste vegetables) are used to their entirety inside the plant responsive drip.  With this solutions all crops  including trees can be grown anywhere irrespective of seasons.The products we use are found cheaply and locally and can be replicated globally.

In most developing countries farming is not sustainable because of cost of inputs like fertilizer, water,labor, irrigation and climate change.These has resulted to food insecurity affecting billions of people worldwide.Many organizations like World Food program uses billions of USD to feed people world wide.

There is a big shortfall between the amount of food we produce today and
the amount needed to feed everyone in 2050. There will be nearly 10
billion people on Earth by 2050—about 3 billion more mouths to feed than
there were in 2010

In order to ensure food is grown sustainability  we unlock the nutrients from sea salt and vegetable waste and use it 100%  for crop nutrition cutting cost of fertilizer by 85%. We also use a special responsive drip irrigation that only releases water and fertilizer when plants roots ask for it.These ensures water and nutrients are used to their entirety.Our system uses zero energy and works well both in our simplified hydroponics systems(that uses local materials) and in soil growing.

We work with small scale farmers in ASAl,urban farmers,people living in refugee camps and slums.We have different system based on above segments but all of them uses fertilizer from sea salt and vegetables and responsive drip,in ASAL we use special shade nets to reduce temperatures,in refugee camps and slums we use simplified vertical hydroponics systems to grow food.We do pilot of our systems with the beneficiaries and correct feedback go back and redesign till our farmers are happy.For all segments we serve, the shared objective  was to come up with a solution that uses less water,less energy and less cost of consumables to grow more food.Our solution now helps people in refugee and slums to grow food vertically and help crops to be grown in semiarid areas.

We train farmers,install hydroponics systems,install greenhouses,sell responsive drip irrigation and organic fertilizer made from sea salt and organic vegetable waste and offer crop support. We offer financial linkages and market linkages connecting our farmers to the market of fresh produce.We have created a business model where our farmers pays 30% of cost of unit and pay the rest once they start selling their produce.

Our solution is simple we ensure cost effective methods of farming by using:

  1. Nutrients from sea and waste vegetables solution as crop fertilizer

  2. Irrigation system that ensures all nutrients are consumed by plant.

Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and micro nutrients are important nutrients which are present in fertilizer and employed at a large scale via animal feed and crop growth. Nitrogen and phosphorus are produced by fossil raw materials (phosphorus) or by using high quantities of fossil energy
(natural gas for nitrogen). In the current agricultural production systems, about 50% 0f these nutrients is lost to  our water bodies and forms sea salt. We use sea salt which has full spectrum of these nutrients as our fertilizer together with vegetable waste syrup which supplies nitrogen (sea salt has all nutrients expect Nitrogen).To ensure there is no waste of water and nutrients either from evaporation or leaching we use   Responsive drip irrigation system from our contracted supplier in US which works by using

an understanding of plant physiology and organic chemistry to
create a symbiotic relationship between plant roots, soil, and water.
When crops and plants need water and nutrients, they emit root exudates
that allow them to uptake what they need from the surrounding soil.

The patented RDI system responds and interacts with these root exudates,
allowing water and nutrients to be released out of the billions of
“smart micropores” in the GrowStream tubing. GrowStream’s™
plant-responsive system provides a slow-release delivery of water flow
that matches the roots’ absorption capacity.

When the plant is satisfied, it stops producing root exudates- and GrowStream stops releasing water.

Plant variety, stages of growth and development, and weather conditions like
temperature, sunshine, rain, wind, humidity… all contribute to how much
water and nutrients each plant root demands. Like an underground
reservoir, GrowStream allows each and every plant to draw what it
needs- dynamically, 24/7.

Our solution is innovative because:

• We have successively formulated a complete organic fertilizer with a full spectrum of nutrients from sea salt and vegetable waste solution. This fertilizer is able to grow all food crops and trees. It is 85% cheaper than conventional inorganic fertilizer.The sea salt and fertilizer are locally available  in many countries and where sea salt is not available it is very cheap to import, this ensures sustainability.
• With Responsive drip irrigation both water and fertilizer are used to their entirety.No waste to the environment. These ensure saving of 80% water and 50% of fertilizer. The RDI technology uses organic chemistry and plant physiology no use of electricity for irrigation and works with low pressure of 2.2 psI that requires tank to be raised 1.5m above the ground.
• Our Simplified hydroponics system are customized to work in  Africa and Asia context using local materials, we also use local technicians and marketers.
• We have created a business model where farmers pay 30% of cost of installation and start paying the rest once they start selling to our contracted buyers of fresh produce.
• We have two microfinance that are financing our farmers who are producing under contract farming arrangement.

We domesticate and combine three disruptive existing  technologies,as explained below:

• All inclusive simplified hydroponics services. We have simplified hydroponics system to work under Africa context while using local materials which unlike other hydroponics system its able to grow all food crops and everywhere irrespective of climatic conditions. Our hydroponics units designed based on user, crop type, climate, land size and culture.
• Complete fertilizer formulation from sea salt and waste vegetables. Sea salt contains full spectrum of all elements we have a technology of masking sodium chloride and use the other nutrients and supplement with vegetable waste solution in order to get nitrogen being the only nutrients that is not available in sea salt.
• Responsive Drip Irrigation We have a distributorship agreement with a US company https://www.responsivedrip.com.... This is first ever made responsive drip irrigation that gives water via its billions of microscopic holes, when crops need it without use of electricity or energy, making it a “Set It Forget It Innovation”
• Contract Farming Financial Model Because of above three technologies we gurantee food production throught the year. We have per-sign contracts  with off take fresh farm produce buyers. This enables we produce enough quanities for the off take buyers, collect funds which goes to pay the installation cost while the net balance is paid to the farmer. This end to end model has impressed financial institions who have come in to finance our farmers to produce more hence creating a sustainable production chain.

We address the difficulty of farming, and its effects on cost, water, women, youth, disabled, land and low-income areas. We have a solution based on simplified hydroponics, which leverages use of local materials to grow healthy plants automatically without user expertise. Conventional hydroponic systems tend to be expensive, clunky, and require an intimate understanding of their systems in order to be effective for most plants. Most plants will die within a day when a soilless system fails, and the more complex the system the less likely the user will be able to make repairs. We introduce All inclusive Simplified hydroponics for African context. We have developed 5 hydroponics methods based on crop type, water availability, user (elderly or disabled or women), land size, climate and culture. For this simplified hydroponics units to be adapted by the poor, mostly women, We have connected our farmers to microfinance. We then utilize use of Responsive drip irrigation and reclaimed fertilizer from sea and waste vegetables to grow food in sustainable way in both our simplified hydroponics systems and soil.

We do not do these alone, we train and use local and local marketers who are located 50 km radius where we operate, have also partnered with WFP to install vertical hydroponics units to families leaving in Kakuma Refugee camp in Northern Kenya. So far we have installed well over 6,000 units, trained over 20,000 farmers and helped to save over half million liters of water and produced yield of 7,000 tons of food.

Currently we are serving 6000 farmers in the next one year we will be serving 15,000 farmers and after five years we project to have 500,000 farmers across seven coutries

Within the next one year we will intensively and extensively saturate our current market in the Kenya and Rwanda. This will be done through multinational NGOs (such as WFP, FAO,IOM), corporate and government partnerships and enhance food security, livelihood especially to the vulnerable such as refugees and slum dwellers as we reverse negative effects of climate change.

In the next five years we will hope to have extensively installed and spread the technology to eight countries impacting more than 100Million people. We hope to have influenced planting of more than 20Million trees especially in ASAL regions

Barriers.

Absence of standardized regional policies . Some coutries that we are operating in e.g Rwanda have no standards for hydroponic technology. This makes it challenging when in it comes to implementation.

Taxation: Some coutries are imposing high tax on some hydroponic materials e. Rwanda thereby increasing the cost of production.

Widespread Distribution points. We have not covered every area of the region in terms of distribution points. We are in the process of enhancing this front

Wrong use of the systems. Some farmers do not use the systems and the procedures appropriately. Some even take short cuts which ends up to loss. We are in the process of enhancing our training modules

Quality Seedlings: We are still facing low quality seeds based on the source. We are in the process of establishing partnership with high graded seed distribution

We are in the process of signing distributorship contracts with various entities across the region so that thy can act us our distribution points and agents in their locality.

Creation of a hydroponic institute. This will develop a robust hydroponic curriculum and offer both intensive and extensive training on hydroponic farming especially to the youths

Creating of a hydroponic association that would lobby and advocate  for favorable policies and taxation by laws.

We also signing memorandum of understandngs with various government agencies such as the ministry of agriculture, Rwanda and Kenya irrigation boards, research intuitions etc.

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Full Time Employees: 36

Part time Employees: 20 Mostly a pool of trained technicians

Consultants: 3 Working on Project Advisory

1. We have a strong board comprising of members drawn from successful business entties in the field of climate innovation, agribusiness and finance. This ensures that the company is steered in the right direction.

2.The CEO & Founder is an accomplished graduate of analytical chemistry with twenty years experience in agribusiness. He is the one behind formulation of a range of nutrients specific to various types of crops which is the heart of hydroponics. This guarantee success

3. We have own patents for both the nutrient formulation and hydroponic systems.

4. The Program Manager who assists the CEO has fifteen years in  finance, management, project management, business development and partnership and has been able to run huge projects funded by the UNDP, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Soros Foundation, Government of Japan etc.

5. We also have a team of graduates and experienced professionals as heads of various department such as finance and administration, agronomy, technical, sales and marketing. This team is well able to deliver in any assignment.

1.Kenya Climate Innovation Centre- They provide Technical and Business Advisory services to the company to enhance its climate friendly business solutions

2. Climate Circle- This partnership is meant to enhance product development and design of hydroponic products and practices that are a solution to negative effects of climate change.

3.Rwanda Irrigation Board-This partnership is meant to push for the adoption of  modern and sustainable method of farming in Rwanda

4. National Irrigation Board-This partnership is meant to push for the scaling up of use of hydroponic farming and artificial responsive intelligent drip system as superior methods of modern farming in Kenya.

5. USAID- Secure Water For Food. To provide hydroponic units to people below the pyramid by subsidizing the cost of production.

We have a hybrid of business model

1. Selling on cash: This is for upper class, corporates clients and beneficiaries funded by both local and international NGOs.

2. 80% cash and 20% credit.This is for the middle individual clients

3. Contract Farming Model: In this model the farmer is expected to pay 20% deposit then 80% balance is recovered from sale pf produce which we sell on there behalf, deduct what they owe the company then remit the balance to the farmer.

Our Financial Sustainability model is based on the following strategies;

1. Sales strategy. A bulk of our finances are raised from  sales we make .

2. Equity Strategy: To fund our expansion  programme especially two other countries we are planning to raise capital through giving shareholding to strategic investors.

3. Debt Strategy: To fund our ambitious credit sales strategy and increases sales exponentially, we are planning to raise funds through debt financing to finance farmers to install our systems especially our responsive drip systems which is for large scale production. This will operate as a micro-finance financial model

We would like Solve to enable us overcome the barrier of scaling up our project through increasing our technical capacity. This will be through having the financial resources to buy desalinating equipment and equipment to mask sodium chloride in sea water. We would also like solve to help us standardize all our products by incorporating the intelligent drip system in our hydroponic standards and reap huge benefits of water saving, protecting the environment and reduce co2 since both urban and people living in ASAL region will not be transporting food from bread basket areas but will be producing from their backyard.

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Organizations that desalinate water. This will enable us to clean alkaline water from the ocean and use for irrigation.

Partnership that would enable us acquire an equipment for masking of sodium chloride.

Partnerships that will enable us to come up with machines that can make standardized modules for some of our products

Organizations that manufacture organic fertilizer.

Organizations that produces agricultural sensors

Partnerships that can help us establish and operate Internet of Things
Infrastructure including developing  app that will offer such services
as, farmers enrollment , hydroponic technology knowledge transfer, crop
support, fresh produce market linkages and financial linkages.

We will use the funds to advance AI innovations in our artificial intelligent drip. We will integrate this technology that enables the drip system to release water to the root plant only when it requires water to all our hydroponic systems.

Our solution integrates the principle of circular economy. We will utilize the funds to buy equipment that will enable us mask sodium chloride from sea water thereby generating nutrient rich organic fertilizer. We will also buy equipment that desalinate alkaline sea water making it usable for agricultural use and reduce clogging of our drip system.

We will also use the funds to finance our farmers who will buy our drip system which saves 90% of water and ensures absolute absorption of nutrients thereby ensuring there is no spillage of residue to water bodies.

We will also pre-financing arrangements to all the farmers who are investing in forestry especially in ASAL regions and also encourage them to high valued and medicinal trees using our drip system. This will increase forest cover and absorption of Co2.

We will also subsidize the cost of our hydroponic systems thereby increase installations and convert farmer from traditional methods of farming to modern methods thereby saving on water.

We would use the funds to enroll more women in our programme. Women face the huge challenge of access to funds and land. We will use these funds to pre-finance women into our contract farming model using and use  hydroponic technology that uses very limited land space to enable women grow for already pre-signed off take buyers such as chain of supermarkets. This will enhance their economic empowerment , enhance household food security even as they protect the environment using modern method of farming

We will venture into internet of things and use of data. We will develop an app that will do the following ;

1. Enroll farmers and potential farmers

2. Train farmer through a technology transfer platform

3. Offer agronomy crop support and management through this platform

4. Offer marketing solution

5. Offer financial solution.

We will protect this data and use it for the interest of the company and our clients