Supporting Ugandan small holder farmers with affordable services, with Peter Nyeko from Reparle

Overview

During my travels in East Africa, time and again people would point to the low prices that farmers receive as the main blocker to development.

Low prices come from not being able to store produce, nor do the basic milling to give it more value. It’s difficult though, as much of the basic infrastructure such as transport, power and facilities are absent in the many rural areas that exist in the region.

Peter Nyeko set up Reparle as a marriage of three organisations to solve exactly this. We talk about the environment that many rural farmers are living, how Reparle learnt about the conditions they worked in and the considerations with planning out a large scale project like this.

We also talk a fair bit about biomass, and so if you’re interested in learning more about this solar alternative to clean energy creation, look out for the Clean Cooking episode I did with Ziwa from Green Bioenergy.

 


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Here are the key quotes:

“Reparle stands for…”

Renewable Energy Empowering Agriculture and Rural Livelihood Enhancement

“It’s a project made up of others”

Mandulis Energy (which focuses on biomass energy), Dream Shuttle (for logistics and distribution), Acted (French NGO) which helps us focus on social impact.

“We provide small holder farmer services”

We give them access to processing facilities as well as means to have electricity and clean cooking facilities.

“Selling raw means a poor price”

When a commodity has no processing, it needs to be sold at a low price to traders. Reparle gives facilities to farmers (such as storage and milling) which means they can add value to their product and receive a higher price.

“We provide milling within 10 miles of where they live”

There are up to 6,000 farmers who can access each milling facility at one of the Reparle hubs. We are also able to link up farmers to electricity in the off-grid areas.

“Reparle for profit but…”

It’s also a social business. We offer farmers agricultural services, clean fuel and electrcity at below market price .

“Solar is really expensive”

And so we offer biomass electricity which is a quarter of the cost of solar. It’s all about getting the logistics of moving reliable biomass to generate electricity.

“Lack of infrastructure has been a barrier to entry”

Larger organisations have been put off doing this because they have needed electricity and transport systems to run the business. Reparle have been able to build this infrastructure and so are creating the market.

“There’s also not the capacity”

Millers can’t run their factories any more. Most of Ugandans don’t have electricity or these other services, and so we go to these virgin markets.

“We’ve had awesome knowledge transfer”

Between the three entities (renewable energy, logistics and social impact) we’ve had recognition from reputable international organisations around what we’ve achieved.

“In Africa the one thing you can’t control is political risk”

For this I mean instability just popping up. You have to leave that to insurance. Other than that we built a system to mitigate other risks that we might face.

“Our on grid project took a decade”

Supplying electricity from our plants to the Uganda Electric Grid has taken time, but nevertheless has been pretty straightforward.

“We prepared for many scenarios”

Lots of things such as if regulation changed, deadlines were missed, and costs were to jump. Projects are planned to cater for 1.5 times the worst case scenario.

“We walked in the fields with farmers”

From the start we have worked as farmers ourselves which allowed us to design a system that was built for them and what they would need.

Links etc.

Mandulis Energy Dream Shuttle Acted NGO CFO World Economic Forum Top 10 Female Innovators

Social Media Follows etc.

Website: www.mandulisenergy.com Facebook: Mandulis Energy

Why biomass charcoal cooking stoves are saving lives, with Ziwa Hillington from Green Bioenergy

Overview

Cooking is an everyday activity that most people engage in.

In places where you don’t have gas, charcoal is often used to fire up a stove.

Whilst people have been doing this for years, it is not very environmentally friendly, and it generates smoke in often confined areas of a home.

Green Bioenergy is a social enterprise all about creating a clean cooking environment.

Their two products are an improved cooking stove and smokeless charcoal briquettes.

Ziwa and I discuss how they sell briquettes through rural agents, how they keep the complete supply chain produced in Uganda, and the prospects for taking this approach internationally.

We conducted the interview in the garden of the Green Bioenergy office/ house and so there might be the odd bird tweeting in the background.

Either way, I hope this doesn’t distract you from the interesting chat that we have.

 


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Here are the key quotes:

“It was founded in 2011 by two French expats”

The foundations were around finding environmentally friendly solutions.

“Green Bioenergy (GBE) is inclusive”

All of it is around involving the local Ugandan community in the complete supply chain.

“Our two products are charcoal briquettes and improved cookstoves”

The cookstoves have 40% less emissions. They are durable and help people save money by using it.

“Cleanliness comes too”

It’s not just financial savings. By using the cookstove and briquettes, they are smoke free and so users get health benefits in cooking in a clean environment.

“Briquettes are made from recyclable waste”

They are produced through a carbonisation process which removes carbon, and therefore smoke becomes absent when it’s burnt.

“Everything is done locally”

Stoves and machines are produced locally as is the whole value chain.

“People take time to adapt to briquettes”

We need to undertake internal activities and work with the government to help promote the benefits of using the charcoal briquette product. People have used charcoal for a long time, and so it takes time to change their mind.

“… but once they start, they don’t stop”

It’s healthy, harm free and people have been using it for years.

“We sell through agents”

They’re like community ambassadors. They are entrepreneurs who go to villages and sell via a micro-enterprise. They find GBE through conferences they attend.

“The agents cover 50 households”

There shouldn’t be any reason why customers who talk with an agent should not start using the briquettes.

“This can exist internationally”

The requirements are getting the machinery and passing on the training. Our founders worked with local engineers and academic research.

“Our roles a social enterprise to create employment”

We currently have 70 people and when we look at the mandate for expansion, adding more jobs is critical.

“The biggest surprise has been externally”

Such as trying to understand why people would not use a briquette. The other factors include whether policy will support the business.

“Biomass is the biggest resource for the next 20 years”

People will still be using these cookstoves for many years, even with developents in gas and electricity over time.

“GBE wants to grow beyond Uganda”

They can grow to other countries which are very keen to use this in their communities around the world.

“There’s no fundamental reason why it can’t be done elsewhere”

So long as there are banana skins, it should be possible to do this process. And if it’s not straightforward, then the R&D team are always developing ways to do this.

Links etc.

MIT D Lab

Biomass review report

Green Bioenergy

Products: Briketi and Cookstoves

Website: www.greenbioenergy.org

Facebook: Green BioenergyBriketi

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (+256)0393-514-710

Pictures from the interview

Green Bioenergy Charcoal Briketi

Green Bioenergy Charcoal Briketi

Green Bioenergy Cookstove

Green Bioenergy Cookstove

How using solar energy can drastically improve how farmers water their crops, with Flavia Howard

Overview

Water is fundamental to any sort of agricultural business. As it stands, a large portion of Rwandan farmers only get it from the sky, in the form of sporadic rainfall. This is despite plentiful lakes full of water being mere metres away.

Irrigation is the general term process for artificially getting water on these crops, and Flavia and I discuss her evaluation of the market and the product she has been looking at (Future Pump) that provides a solar powered irrigation pump to smallholder farmers.

 


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Here are some of the key quotes:

“Irrigation is artificially watering fields”

It’s essentially any time that water is taken from one source (such as a lake or river) and put on a field

“There’s currently a whole season where farmers can’t get income”

Without access to irrigation systems farmers are limited to growing whenever it rains. This is unreliable and means that there are big periods of the year when they just can’t earn any money

“Enormous irrigation was the status quo”

The only irrigation projects have been large scale government operations which were prohibitive for small scale farmers, or expensive petrol pumps. 2% of farmers use petrol pumps, the rest have no income.

“Rwanda isn’t a water poor country”

The problem isn’t that there’s enough water, it’s just that it’s located in lakes. The crux of irrigation is to get the water out from the lakes and onto fields so that farmers can increase their yield.

“Solar makes running costs free”

Using an solar powered irrigation pump that has been developed in Kenya, farmers are able to harness the sun’s energy to replace the petrol pumps that some of them are using.

“The payback is one season”

Whilst it is still a big upfront cost to buy a solar powered pump, the additional revenue that can be earned means that it should payback within an irrigated dry season. The challenge comes in how to set up the financing in this industry, to give smallholder farmers access.

Vegetable farmers have a quicker payback than maize and beans.

“There are competing costs”

They have costs for fertiliser and casual labour but also other expenditure such as electricity at home and school fees.

“Because of the hills people grow tea and potatoes”

Whereas in the flatter parts of the country they grow different crops such as maize and beans. In the valleys, it’s rice.

“Access to market is a challenge in Rwanda”

Distribution is difficult. Most people carry the produce on their head and formal structures don’t exist across the country. It’s mainly operating in a cooperative, and then a chain of bigger markets and smaller markets all the way to consumers.

“Being dictated by the seasons means there are supply spikes”

If everyone is harvesting their tomatoes at the same time, then when they all go to market, the price drops. If a farmer can better control his irrigation and therefore supply tomatoes when others are not, he will see a better price for his produce.

“Big producers won’t use petrol anymore”

The additional costs that come with running a petrol powered operation mean that more and more of the sector are moving over to use solar power as a means to irrigate their land

“Rwanda is different because of the government”

Whereas farmers across East and Southern Africa will benefit from solar powered irrigation, the government in Rwanda has recognised that this is an area where benefits can be reaped, and so is giving a 50% subsidy to pumps for smallholder farmers.

“Paying back a solar pump opens opportunities to purchase more on credit”

Being able to demonstrate the ability to payback the upfront cost of an irrigation pump will make access to capital easier for larger purchases that can facilitate development and growth.

“Shared water access is an increasing (international) challenge”

Direction over ensuring that rivers and lakes don’t get over-irrigated comes from governments and other international bodies that try to keep the system fair, safe and sustainable.

“Farmers are open to this new technology”

Telling them that they can save $10/ day on petrol costs is pretty compelling. There is some learning around how to use the pump differently to the incumbent petrol ones, but as they are designed similarly, this doesn’t seem to be a huge issue.

Social Media Follows

Future Pump Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/futurepump/

Future Pump Twitter: https://twitter.com/futurepump

Off-grid GSM provider: http://steama.co/

Flavia Howard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flavia-howard-a0a01341

Electricity from the sun: how BBOXX’s off-grid solar systems power rural Rwanda, with Justus Mucyo

Overview

Off grid electricity is a big thing in Rwanda. The country is not going through the arduous process of establishing the grid, and then getting everybody to connect to it, and so for their energy a lot of Rwandan households are instead are going straight to source: the sun. BBOXX is an organisation providing  such a service at an affordable rate across the country.

Justus (BBOXX’s Rwanda MD) and I discuss the evolution of the sector, adapting customer’s mindsets from ownership to service, and the outlook for “off grid” energy.

 


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Here are some of the key quotes:

“We sell solar energy all over Rwanda”

Since setting up in the northern provinces of Rwanda in 2014, BBOXX has coverage across the country. They set up shops in towns which act as a local base for customers to get set up. They are looking to open more in order to make their service even more accessible.

“We are not the only players”

There are other companies in the solar energy market which offer off grid electricity solutions. Importantly though the government have begun to realise that private companies offering this energy could help the country develop, rather than necessitating expensive on grid projects.

The government is looking to help with the marketing of off grid electricity, with private companies offering the solutions.

Some of the other off grid companies operating here are: MobisolIgnite PowerOff Grid Electric

“80% of the country is off grid”

This is where BBOXX currently focuses: getting people who have no electricity. That said, connecting to the grid can still be arduous and so some people who are metres from an on grid tower will opt for a BBOXX.

“Customers don’t own the system”

Customers pay for the functionality of having electricity, rather than outright owning the solar panels. If the system breaks down then BBOXX replaces it, ensuring that they still have access to electricity for their monthly plan.

The customers typically own the appliances (which are paid for month by month) and packages for the main system begin at $5/ month.

Ownership sounds exciting until problems are incurred. Many solar systems are left dormant if they break down and the customer is left with an expensive piece of kit that they can’t fix.

“It’s not just the light bulb, it’s the lifestyle”

People are increasingly looking to get additional appliances with their newfound electricity. BBOXX is seeing demand for products such as phone chargers, flash torches and radios which provide entertainment to their customers, beyond simply lights.

Customers aspire to own a TV, especially if their neighbour has one.

“Yes they can afford it”

The current ways in which customers are getting their electricity means that $5/ month is affordable for people. Their power comes from a combination of candles, phone charge kiosks and kerosene stoves.

Most people have mobile phones now, but the nearest trading post where they can charge it are 2-3 kilometres away and that usually costs $0.50 each charge.

“I don’t think there will be one dominant company”

The current players are unlocking a whole new market and so it is plausible that other companies will emerge and specialise in particular parts of the value chain. Only those who remain focused on what they do are likely to prosper.

“Explaining 3 year payment plans was a challenge”

Getting people into the mindset of financing (get something upfront and payback over time) was something which BBOXX initially had to devote time to explaining.

Most customers had only ever been able to buy something with cash, and so were required to save themselves before heading to market. Teaching how they could pay back over time require a shift in mindset.

“The end goal is to replicate this model across the world”

BBOXX are working on refining their systems and processes so that they can take their model and apply it in any emerging market. Their vision is to be the world leader

“The biggest challenge is raising financing”

The local financing industry is just starting to look at this industry. The big opportunity comes in local banks providing financing to customers to get them started with having solar energy.

This is a profitable business that helps people’s lives in a sustainable way. Foreign investors have understood this, and now local financiers are beginning to too.

Social Media Follows

BBOXX HQ: https://twitter.com/BBOXX_HQ

BBOXX Rwanda: https://twitter.com/BBOXX_Rwanda