Solar Floppy Irrigation School Shambas

The World Bank estimates that while 83% of Kenya’s land area is arid and semi-arid, only 2% of arable land is under irrigation. Most of Kenya’s smallholder farmers are women - school meals are central to their decision to send their children to boarding schools.

59 million children suffer from diet-related stunting while Africa’s annual food importation bill of $35 billion is estimated to rise to $110 billion by 2025. With locust invasions, climate-change, COVID-19 and the average farmer age at 60, a fundamental way to change this future is by introducing children to the exciting future of agriculture while they raise nutritious food on School land using climate-smart irrigation.

Because this innovative solar Floppy irrigation – Ag Tech combo uses the Sun’s energy, less water & fewer farm synthetic inputs while increasing production and, can be controlled from the classroom the system makes farming new and exciting for students. 

On June 9th, the UN secretary general, António Guterres warned that the world stands on the brink of a food crisis worse than any seen for at least 50 years.  “Unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that there is an impending global food emergency that could have long-term impacts on hundreds of millions of children and adults.”

When Schools approached us, (an agri-business start-up) we knew we couldn’t wait till we had revenue or profits or a breather from Covid-19 to jump in.

When a County Irrigation officer approached us saying that this can transform his 700 schools in arid and semi-arid regions, we realized this has the potential to make a social and environmental impact across schools in Kenya.

At 200 million hectares, sub-Saharan Africa alone is home to nearly half of the world’s uncultivated land that can be brought into production. Africa uses only 2% of its renewable water resources compared to 5% globally. Our primary goal as a business is to redraw the agriculture map of Sub-Sharan Africa to make farming more resilient to climate change and thereby increase nutrition for children and food security.

Floppy Sprinkler™ Technology offers a revolutionary solution for farmers and farming communities who need reliable water to grow crops year-round. Solar-powered Floppy Sprinkler Systems open up vast areas of off-grid farmland even where there is deep ground water.

Compared to drip irrigation, this overhead system has several advantages:

• 15 - 25% less water
• Yield and quality increases of 15-40%
• 25-year lifespan 

Production under Floppy Sprinklers is always greater than with drip irrigation because:

• Floppy washes plant leaves like rain which increases photosynthesis and production
• Just the right amount of water prevents runoff and gives the plant roots optimal amounts of water, reducing crop pest and fungal damage
• Floppy Sprinklers can cool plants and micro-environment around plants by decreasing temperatures 4 -10° C.
• Floppy sprinklers are 4-5 meters overhead unlike drip irrigation lines that frequently clog, can be damaged by farm equipment, rodents or vandalism
• Virtually maintenance-free compared to drip systems

Our target population is Secondary Schools in Kenya, initially those practising subsistence farming as that will enable them to not only improve the nutrition they offer resident students but also energize African youth to embrace modern agriculture and related Ag Tech developments such as climate-smart irrigation.

We have detailed discussions with the School Principal to understand their needs (nutrition), challenges (high energy costs and water problems), their commitment (they see this as a teaching opportunity for their students) and solar needs for the school.

Once identified we would follow the same process we do with farmers. Site visit to understand the soil type, water resources, crops grown. We then work closely with them to design the irrigation and solar system based on all the above factors, before installing. We would also seek the advise of an Agronomist on what crops to grow. Post-installion, we would provide the same measures we offer farmers viz.:

We have developed risk mitigation measures to help ensure farmer success.  Briefly, these include:

• Maintenance Program   
• Soil Moisture Sensors
• Farm Managers (where appropriate)
• Remote Monitoring
• Locust Control Applications:  Unlike almost every other irrigation system, Floppy Sprinklers lend themselves especially well to locust control.  
• Insurance against crop failure and theft

Between climate change and Covid-19, the future of children and farming is vulnerable to the damaging effects. If we are to create the next generation of farmers to feed the world, we must invest in smart ag-solutions that not only provide diverse, nutritious food to students, but also has the least impact on the environment. 

Our solution has the potential to have social and environmental impact for young populations who are the custodians of the environment they will inherit. 

What makes our solution innovative is that it creates a new food production system that not only supports the nutrition needs of students, but is also relevant to the times:

- climate-smart solution that uses renewable energy, less water, and fewer fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides

- addresses a new demographic - creating the tech-savvy next generation of farmers (Kenya's average farmer is 60 years)

- addresses food security and the high cost of school lunches in a country that imports 72% of food from Uganda, India, the Middle East, Europe and the US.

While there are truly commendable organisations working with smallholder farmers (One Acre Fund, Sun Culture, Acre AFRICA, Juhudi Kilimo), none are focused on food security for children in resident schools, and the need to attract youth to the excitement of modern, tech-based farming that can enable the world to feed 7 billion people.  

What makes it unique - it addresses the biggest risks to farming: lack of water, poor farm management and remote control and monitoring. 

• Irrigation in Kenya is fraught with problems.  Drip and sprinkler irrigation requires high maintenance, need replacement every 3-5 years, require more energy, and synthetic farm inputs, yet provide lower yields and are very expensive.
• Solar Floppy irrigation offers a cost – effective alternative with very low DIY maintenance and has a long 25-years life.
• Solar Floppy combines easily with Ag tech. (Soil moisture sensors, ambient temp monitors, and leaf temperature monitors).
• The entire system can be economically classroom controlled and monitored.

1. Solar Power
2. Unique flow controller in each floppy which results in even distribution of water to every corner of the field, resulting in less disease
3. Remote Sensing through LoRa and Internet 
4. Ag Tech - soil moisture sensors, temperature sensors, virtual weather stations, leaf temperature sensors, remote photo-based pest identification, algorithm-based disease model prediction 
5. The only irrigation system that easily lends itself to creating a micro-environment ideal for maximizing plant productivity in hot climates by using ambient and leaf temperature sensors combined with soil moisture sensors in hot climates, the system can deliver micro-bursts of artificial rain that maintains plant leaves less than 34 Degrees C and ambient temperatures less than 29 Degrees C

The first site globally where Solar power was combined with Floppy Sprinklers is outside of Cairo, Egypt.  Independent research results on several crops comparing Solar Floppys to grid-based center pivot irrigatoion have been exceptionally strong as summarrized below. 

Link to Detailed Independent Research Results 

https://1drv.ms/b/s!Asc4dXknFn...   

Research in S. Africa to be reported soon indicates that production of Macadamia Nuts can be nearly doubled by using Floppy Sprinklers to create an ideal micro-environment to maximize plant growth. 

1. By putting students front and centre of the solution, they become the voice of change for the entire country. 
2. By creating a new food system, Kenyans can feed their people and not rely on importing food. (Kenya imports 72% of food from Uganda, India, M East, Europe and the US.)
3. At 200 million hectares, sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly half of the world’s uncultivated land that can be brought into production under solar floppy irrigation. Africa uses only 2% of its renewable water resources compared to 5% globally.
4. By energizing Kenya youth to embrace modern agriculture, we are investing in their education in line with the new curriculum that includes agricultur. (With the average farmer at 60 years old).
5. By measuring the nutritional impact on children, crops can be grown year-round to meet diverse nutritional needs. (59 million children in Africa suffer from diet-related stunting.)

Currently Serve:  Zero School Children (We are seeking a grant to pilot in 2 schools before schools reopen in September when Covid-19 restrictions are expected to be lifted.)

1 Year -  We expect to be in 4 schools and reach 2,000 students, 80 teachers and administrators, 2,500 families, 12,500 people

5 years  We expect to be in 20 schools, reaching 10,000 student, 400 teachers and administrators, 12,500 families and 62,500 people

You know how many schools we can reach better than I, so you can amend year 1 and five above and on the next question.

Floppy sprinkler irrigation has been around for over 25 years (and farmers have continued to run them with no problems and impressive results.) We wanted to introduce it in Kenya but were very clear we needed it to be linked to solar to be truly effective for Kenyan farming conditions, given the high cost of energy. When a young engineer in Egypt linked floppies to solar, the magic happened. The results in Egypt have been remarkable not just with large commercial farms, but also small bedouin ones across crops like wheat, barley, lucerne, rice and more. 

In five years, our goal is to take solar floppy irrigation to farmers and schools across East Africa and the rest of Africa. Our approach can be replicated anywhere in the world, as food shortage is a global reality.  

Most of our barriers are financial.  

We beleive that we have the techncial and market barriers worked out and that both legally and culturally these solutions will be highly acceptable.

The remaining barrier would be scaling at speed to engage the world's youth so we create enthusiastic young graduates who will go on to embrace a life of farming at all levels and scales from small farmers to large scale commercial farms embracing modern climate friendly irrigation and Ag-Tech solutions to feeding the world's future populations. 

An exciting thing is that now highly productive, climate smart farming can be done anywhere in the world where there is sufficient groundwater or surface water resources.

These achievements can be replicated throughout the world using the vast agent network of the Floppy Sprinkler Company working with donors, Ag Tech Companies doing CSR, commerical food companies, county governments etc

Despite staying under the radar in our first year of operation to be able to develop key partnerships and services to ensure farmer success (not just sales) we've been approached by one County irrigation officer asking us to introduce it in one school so he can show proof of concept to roll it out to the 700 schools in his County where malnutrition impacts performance and drop out numbers. 

There is a strong possibility that the Counties Governments will embrace this idea for their schools, once they see the social and environment impact. 

We are the sole agent of Floppy Sprinkler Irrigation, a South African company. We work closely with them and under their technical guidance to ensure each installation is custom-designed to suit the topography, soil and water resources and agricultural needs. 

The relationship is symbiotic, what we are trying to do for farmers in Kenya requires very different approaches and services than South Africa or Egypt. We share knowledge, have an open, transparent relationship and a common vision to redraw the agricultural map for Africa and the world using climate-smart solutions to benefit humanity. 

Full-time staff - 3

Finance/accounting part-time consultant - 1

Sales support and service contractor - 2

Irrigation Engineer full-time consultant - 1

Irrigation part-time consultant - 1

Solar engineer contractor - 1

Nutrionist part time consultant - 1

Farm managers (to be hired as needed for farmer/School groups)

Advisory technical support (irrigation and solar) - 2

We are a group of agriculture, livestock, and business professionals with decades of developing country experience in international development and the private sector. 

Founder/CEO: Dr. Chip Stem has spent much of his career solving challenges in the livestock and meat sectors of the Horn of Africa and the Arabian
Peninsula and the Middle East. He is currently the CEO of Livestock Trade Services Ltd and Solar Floppy Irrigation Ltd and based in Kenya. As a
veterinarian with a degree in economics Chip takes a business approach to problem-solving. He has focused much of his career on changing the status
quo for farmers and pastoralists in the Horn of Africa, first though successful rinderpest eradication and more recently by designing and building the first
modern livestock export quarantine in Africa which opened up legal livestock export trade from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East for
the first time in 25 years. 

Director: Beverley Bathija is a GCC & ME and Africa Communications

Specialist. Having worked in the private sector as well as in donor-funded development in Africa, S. Asia, and South America, Beverley’s work spans the
commercial and non-profit sectors. She has worked with leading global marketing communications firms including FP7, MullenLowe, JWT, Lintas, Grey, Saatchi, and donor-funded projects under funding from USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Being just over a year old (and set back a few months by Covid-19) we are in the process of developing partnerships with the following. In some cases, we have already started working with them. 

ACRE Africa (crop insurance) -  acreafrica.com 

Solarise Africa (agricultural finance) - solariseafrica.com

Ecoligo (solar energy) - ecoligo.com 

Imarika Sacco (Savings and Credit Cooperative Organization) - imarika.org 

Tabasamu Sacco (agricultural finance) - tabasamusacco.org 

Vision Afrika Sacco (agricultural finance) - visionafrikasacco.com 

Cooperative Bank (loan guarantee) - co-opbank.co.ke

Pessl/Metos Instuments (soil moisture sensors & weather station) - metos.at 

Floppy Sprinkler Company (product & technical support) - floppysprinkler.com 

We are now making links with research organizations and academic institutions (KALRO, Egerton University, Kenya. 

We are also exploring youth groups and leadership, artists as social commentators on climate justice/biodiversity, young entrepreneurs.

Key customers and beneficiaries: Secondary school students in Kenya initially, and Sub Saharan Africa.

We will provide solar floppy irrigation and support services directly to schools, working with nutritionists, agronomists, organic fertilizer providers and our technical experts. 

Value Proposition: Feeding their potential academically and nutritionally whilst also impacting the environment

Impact Measures

# of students # of schools # nutrition scores # yields (highest yield, lowest inputs) 

Type of intervention

School shambas (farms)

Key Activities

Exactly the same program we do for farmers, with the same risk-mitigation measures

Surplus

Market linkages

We have an idea that is much bigger than us that can impact student' performance and attendance across the world, not just in Kenya or Africa. School meals are an important part of the education systems everywhere. Solve is such an exciting platform and we hope leaders and change-makers take the idea to as many schools as possible. 

This wasn't even our idea. Schools approached us asking for it. As a start-up chafing at the bit to start installations on farms with all the Covid-19 restrictions, when Schools approached us we knew we couldn’t wait till we have revenue, profits or a breather to jump in. We need open hearts, minds and deep pockets if we want to introduce it successfully in counties to be able to draw County support to take it forward to schools where malnutrition is high. 

As Wawira Njiru, the yought activist feeding 10,000 school kids every day reminds us, “One in 4 people in the world in 2050 are going to be African. 

“This is not something that’s nice to do. It’s necessary to do.”

We need partnership support from agri-tech companies that see agriculture and education as drivers of food security. Microsoft Farmbeats for example, connects IoT. 

We don't have the bandwidth to expand as quickly as the demand seems to imply. We need help to distribute our products, offer services, workshops for students and get data on the nutritional impact on students. It can't be a one-size fits all solution. In Kenya itself, soil type, topography, water and the diversity of crops all vary - we need help from experts. 

We are starting the conversation with NGOs here, and we hope to partner with some of them. 

MIT Esther Duflow: We are inspired by Esther Duflo approach of testing solutions with randomized trials. We would be honoured to have her guidance and learnings fromIPA’s  research in the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO Chobani:  His anti-CEO playbook model resonates with us as a start-up business on every level: consumer, community, product, service, shared values and service to humanity. Having him on our Board would inspire you to a whole new level with doing great by doing good.