Togo Demo Farm
The demo farm initiative in Togo aims to teach locals how to farm by leading by example. This will also support our initiatives to integrate solar cooking into locals homes.
Description
The demo-farm allows for participants to lodge, learn, grow and cook without fuel during their training session. This allows participants (vegetable growers) to travel from all rural areas and carry knowledge back to their communities. The goal of the demo-farm is to improve food and nutrition security in rural areas where farmers do not have access to grid-electricity, to give farmers an opportunity to learn about sustainable farming practices and climate change, introduce small-scale irrigation powered by high quality standalone solar system, and stimulate a small capital to trade goods and skills to the community. It is important that vegetable growers understand that the climate is changing, and agronomic patterns must change to match the demand of the growing population. We offer training in each crop technical itinerary and follow up till the crop is harvested. We offer bookkeeping training to vegetable growers so that they can have a clear view of their investments, operations and profitability. Furthermore, we connect vegetable growers to market to reduce logistic burden through the vegetables value chain, and this approach reduce significantly post-harvest losses.
For farmers to visualize what can be achieved with our irrigation systems and solar cookers, we grow vegetables in our demo-farm where farmers will be cooking exclusively with solar cookers during their one-month training session. This experience will increase farmer’s willingness to promote clean cooking and solar irrigation adoption among their peers once they go back to their communities.
Farmer Selection Process
During clean cooking events in our targeted rural communities, we identify early adopters and invite them to apply for a month-long training in our demo-farm. The training is free and includes transportation, accommodation, and food. We plan to train 50 women to be vegetable growers, with the objective that half of them will represent the demo farm in their communities. Once back to their communities, trainees start building a self-help group of four new vegetable growers, each of which has half of a hectare of land to be used for our project. After the group's creation, each member of the group will pay registration fees over 36 months and agree to a contractual organic agriculture program. This work will be carried out by our trainee, who is the group leader. If the group leader is successful of overseeing and mentoring their group members, then they will become our representative in their community.
Materials Provided
The group leader receives a kit of one solar-powered irrigation system (SPIS), 4 Cookers, and any necessary inputs for the group. The SPIS is an Ennos solar pump model JSPBL1.5/CF25-1 that will be used to irrigate 20,000sqm of land owned by the group but each member will work on their own 0.5Ha. This solar pump with an integrated controller is easy to use, maintenance-free, and highly efficient over a wide range of flows and pressures. It can also gather data through an Android phone, using the sunlight pumps application. This is powered by 1,800W solar panels that can provide 14 cubic meters per hour. The project pump head is 10m and the distance between the water point and the reservoir is 200m. We assume that the need of water to grow vegetable in 20,000sq meter is 20 cubic meters per day. Ennos solar pumps model JSPBL1.5/CF25-1 can supply this quantity of water in less than 2 hours.
Farming Techniques
Vegetables Grown
High value organic vegetables will be grown. To make sure that vegetable growers will not use chemical input, we supply all inputs ourselves. Tomato is one of the high value crops used in every meal in our communities. We assume that tomatoes grown in 10,000 sqm produces 20 tons of product, and can be harvested after 3 months and farmed three times per year. 1kg of tomatoes costs $0.50 (in USD) to produce and $0.70 when sold. After tomatoes are sold, each grower earns $6,000 and that corresponds to approximately $16.40 of earning every day.
Agroforestry
Short cycle fruit trees will be intercropped in the vegetables. The advantage of intercropping fruits trees is that fruits have monetary value and can be eaten by vegetable growers' family members (that likely are nutrient deficient) virtually for free. Also the leaves of the intercropped trees fall to the ground, which will regenerate the soil and will become more productive. We assume that 100 papaya trees can be intercropped in 10,000 sqm. Three trees need 25L of water per week to grow, and the productivity of papaya is 35 kg of fruits in one year. 1kg of papaya cost $0.20 to produce and it is sold at $0.50. After papaya sales, each grower earns $525 and that corresponds to approximately $1.40 of earning every day.
The growth of vegetables intercropped with short cycle fruit trees will generate in average $22.60 per day for each farmer. This revenue is over 11x what small farmers earn from traditional rain-fed agriculture. However 30% of their harvest is lost, which corresponds to $6.78/day of reduced revenue, which can be reduces via our post-harvest loss (PHL) plan.
Post-harvest loss reduction
We will solve fruit and vegetables losses through methods such as Gum Arabic Coating. The coating delays ripening significantly; for example, it increases the shelf-life of tomatoes by up to 20 days. Additionally, we use heavy plastic containers to store and handle products. This approach helps reduce losses incurred during transport and handling by up to 40%, compared to traditional transport mechanisms such as bags. These containers cost $8 each and have a lifespan of five years. We can lease containers to farmers during the harvesting period for $1 each. We assume that 50 units of heavy plastic containers will be needed by each farmers.
The use of Gum Arabic and heavy plastic container will reduce PHLs by 50%. That corresponds to $3.40 earned by each grower from PHL management. Our program will finally generate $19.22 revenue for each farmers each day, which is 10x the revenue earned by each small farmer in Togo.
Financing
Access to Market
To ensure uptake, crops are processed, aggregated, and shipped directly to anchor buyers. By reducing the need for storage, the combination of on-farm processing, and selling to anchor buyers has the potential to reduce PHL by as much as 80%. Supply agreements will be made to secure sales and consistent incomes.
Finanial Model
Our model will cost $3,750 to each grower. However, applicants are unable to pay this amount upfront because they don’t have savings, and they can’t get loan from local financial institutions, so instead they can pay us back after harvest. This option was accepted by locals when we approached them during our feasibility research study. To make our plan work, each local group will open a group account in a microfinance institute, where they will collect every payment that is due. We also use PAYGO software to monitor water access for each group. If a group fails to pay us back, they will be disconnected from our water access. The group leader can also disconnect a member of their group if they are not performing in their loan payment.
Funding
Currently, we do not have funding for the initial amount needed to make our approach work because of a lack of resources. We do not qualify for local bank funding that asks for collateral, and our local banks don’t fund projects in the pilot stage. We are not also eligible to government grants that target well known big organizations. That is why we need grant from philanthropists to pilot our business concept. "Go-invest" and "Charm capital" have promise to invest once reports during our pilot are showing significant progress.
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We approached two microfinance institutes, CECA and ASSILASIME, and they are interested to sign a MOU once we secure grant for the project.