Rural Solar Hubs

30 million Smallholder farmers across Nigeria rely heavily on fossil fuel agricultural equipment for farming and processing but these equipment are expensive to operate because of the need to constantly buy fuel to power them and this is adversely affecting farmers income, bringing about low productivity and hunger. Fossil fuel powered agricultural equipment also emit tons of carbon into the atmosphere that contribute to global climate change (19 - 31% of greenhouse gas estimated data from world bank and FAO). Our products and services specifically address 3 major problems faced by smallholder farmers using fossil fuel agricultural equipment, these are;

1. Farm irrigation: Petrol irrigation pumps are very expensive to operate, smallholder farmers spends over $5 in a day buying fuel to irrigate just one hectare of farm land.

2. Grain Threshing: Only 16% of the farmers in Nigeria use threshing machines while the remaining 84% use drums sticks and other manual techniques and only 10–15kg of grains per hour can be obtained using manual threshing technique, this is leading to low productivity. Petrol grain threshers which are available mechanized options are very expensive to operate because of the need to constantly buy fuel to power them. Farmers are charged over $7 to thresh 1 ton of grain like maize or rice.

3. In addition, poor access to drying services in Nigeria is causing 40% post-harvest losses of perishables like tomatoes and fruits estimated to be over 700,000 tons in losses yearly.

Nimsy Agro Solar Concept builds solar powered agro equipment that provides farmers with affordable solar irrigation, solar grain threshing and solar drying services on a pay-per-use model through a rural solar hub system. Our solar equipment uses no fuel and have zero carbon emission, they are sustainable and cleaner alternative to expensive and polluting fossil fuel agro equipment. Our solar agro services helps farmers reduce high operational cost, enhance productivity, curtail post-harvest losses and minimize carbon emission. We follow four procedures in setting up our rural solar hub;

1. We carry out a careful site/area selection of a rural community where demand for our services are needed.

2. We set up our solar hub with an average of five mobile solar irrigation pumps, one solar grain thresher and one solar dryer.

3. We locally hire 2-3 rural agent (especially women) and train them to manage the hub and provide our solar agro services to farmers.

4. Our technical team carry out maintenance of the hub regularly

Feature/Benefit of our solar agro equipment.

We have built 3 solar agro equipment;

1.Solar Multi Grain Thresher: It can thresh over 500kg of multiple grains such as rice, maize, soybean and sorghum per hour. It is increasing the efficiency and productivity of farmers as it threshes grains 75 times faster than manual method.

2.Solar Dryer: It dries perishables like tomatoes and fruits faster and hygienically. It is helping farmers curtail high post-harvest loss of as it can increases the shelf life of perishables from 3 days to 12 months.

3. Solar Irrigation Pump:- it is mobile and optimized for over 10 acres of farm land, pumps 30,000 liters per hour. Our solar irrigation pump is helping smallholder farmers cultivate crops all year and save over $55 in fuel cost per month.

Below are demo videos for our 3 solar equipment.

https://bit.ly/SolarThresher

https://bit.ly/Nimsypumps

https://bit.ly/NimsyDryer

Our solar agro solution is targeted primarily at over 30 million smallholder farmers in rural communities of Nigeria. These farmers lack of access to farm equipment for growing crops and processing and this a huge problem to they are currently facing, they perform farm operations manually such as manual irrigation, manual grain threshing and sun drying and these brings about low productivity, post harvest losses and more poverty. Available mechanized options for farming equipment are powered by fossil fuel such as petrol irrigation pumps, petrol grain threshers and gas dryers are expensive to operate because of the need to constantly buy fuel to power them. This problem has worsen in the last few months in Nigeria because petrol price was increased by over 300% due to government removal of subsidy from the product and this has further impoverish smallholder farmers using fuel powered mechanized farming equipment. Our solution which are cleaner and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel agricultural equipment is helping farmers have access to clean energy farming equipment for irrigation, grain threshing and drying at an affordable price on a pay-per-use model and our solar equipment doesn't require fuel as our source of energy is free solar power from abundant sunlight in Nigeria. The following are the impact our solar services in bringing to the lives of rural smallholder farmers.

1. Improving farmers income and curtail high operating cost from using fossil fuel agric equipment. Farmers will able to save more than $55 monthly in fuel cost. 
2. Increasing farmers ability to produce more food all year round through affordable solar irrigation services and curtail high post harvest loss of perishables through affordable solar drying services.
3. Smallholder farmers now have access to our Affordable and clean energy agricultural products and services for irrigation, threshing and drying on pay-per-use payment plans thus enabling a low-carbon food production.
4. Creating jobs for youths and women in rural communities as they serve as our rural agents in providing our services to farmers in rural communities through our rural solar hubs. 
5. Reducing over 5000 Mt of carbon into the atmosphere through the use of our solar powered agric equipment, this will improve quality of air in our environment and slow climate change.

As a team, we are the right people to design and deliver this solution to our target population because we have a first-hand experience about these problem challenging smallholder farmers in our society and our innovative solar solution fit our target audience. 70% of the team are also farmers including the team lead. We have personally experienced smallholders farmers in our communities suffer low productivity because of lack of access to agricultural equipment and available farming equipment are very expensive to operate because they are powered by fossil fuel. We came together as a tea bringing our unique skills to solve this problem, we build solar power agro equipment as a sustainable and cleaner alternative to fossil fuel agro equipment. Our current products (solar irrigation pumps, solar multi grain thresher and solar dryer) are helping farmers save more and have better access to farming equipment. We carry community leaders and numerous farmers along when building our solar agro equipment so as to solve the specific problem they are facing. During one of these dialogs with farmers and community leaders, we were able to come up with our rural solar hub system which turned out to be the best way of delivering our solar agro services to farmers in rural communities. This enhanced the proximity of our services to our target audience and brought our solar agro equipment and services closer to the people that needs it the most and also created jobs as we employ women in the host communities as agents that provide our solar agro services to farmers. My team have a strong narrative of why we am pursuing this vision, the impact and arrive point of our enterprise, and how it will better the lives of smallholder farmers in rural communities. We are experienced and passionate about what we do and we have created a rock-solid business plan that will ensure we meet our goal and create high level of impact to our target audience. Our plan is fully data based that shows our market and marketing plans, financial projections, competitive advantages, revenue model, potential obstacles and plans for dealing with them. As the team lead, I have the drive and wherewithal to take and shape this enterprise into a working, financially viable and scale able social business. My leadership skills include strategic thinking, identifying and implementing action plans to meet objectives, drive and determination to exceed set targets.

We have built and tested our solar irrigation pumps, solar multi-grain threshers and solar dryers. We have also built 3 rural solar hubs where we provide our solar agro services to farmers to 3000+ smallholder farmers across the rural communities where our rural solar hub is located. Each rural solar hub has an average of 5 mobile solar irrigation pumps, 1 solar grain thresher and 1 solar dryer.

I am applying because Solve is a good fit for me  because of the benefits the program offers will help our business and become me become better leader. Specifically we need mentoring on marketing strategies, pricing models and branding to help become a global brand and scale faster. We have innovative products, marketing and branding our product to become a global power house in the Niche of solar powered agro equipment has been a huge problem for us as a team and we strongly believe SOLVE can help us become better at marketing and branding. Secondly, we need exposure and more visibility. Solve can increase our startup's visibility within the agricultural/clean energy industry and attract attention from potential customers and partners.

1. Our rural solar hub approach offers integrated and related solar agro services that is of high demand to smallholder farmers in rural communities (irrigation, grain threshing, drying)

2. The mobile nature of our solar equipment with wheels, as such our solar equipment can be moved to farmers location with the community where our rural solar hub is located.

3. The uniqueness of our design, our solar thresher, dryer and water pump solar panels can be easily tilted and different angles to face the sun and trapped more solar energy which enhances efficiency.

4. The circular nature of our product design, waste products are recycled, excess energy is stored in batteries, this can be used to to provide power for charging mobile phone and small devices for farmers in off-grid rural communities.

5. 90% locally manufactured and affordable with pay-per-use model.

The 3 services we provide farmers with our solar agro equipment are basic services needed by smallholder farmers across Nigeria and Africa. Irrigation is needed to grow crops especially for farmers growing food in the dry season, threshing is needed after harvest to peel grain from their husk, and drying is needed for preservation of perishables. Currently, thousands of smallholder farmers in rural communities of Nigeria lack access to basic agro machinery to enhance their farm and processing operations in Nigeria, the ones who have access to rely heavily on fossil fuel to power this machines which is very expensive to operate because of the need to constantly buy fuel. Our solution has a direct impact on the problem we solve as we build solar powered agro equipment as a cleaner and sustainable alternative to fossil fuel agri equipment and with these we provide farmers with affordable solar irrigation, threshing and drying services. Farmers are now having easy access to clean agro machinery for their farming and processing through our rural solar hub system in their rural communities.

Our target is to build 1000 rural solar hubs that will reach one million farmers by 2030 across Africa with affordable solar agro services across Africa.

Our Impact goals are

1. Improving farmers income and curtail high operating cost from using fossil fuel agric equipment. Farmers will able to save more than $55 monthly in fuel cost. (SDG1 No poverty)

2. Increasing food production through affordable irrigation and drying services to help farmers grow food all season and curtail high post harvest loss of vegetables and grains. (SDG 2 Zero Hunger)

3. Smallholder farmers will have access to our Affordable and clean energy agricultural products and services for irrigation, threshing and drying on pay-per-use model. (SDG 7 Clean and affordable energy)

4. Creating jobs for youths and women in rural communities as they will serve as our rural agents in providing our solar agro services to farmers. (SDG 8 Decent work and economic growth).

5. Reducing over 5000 Mt of carbon into the atmosphere through the use of our solar powered agric equipment, this will improve quality of air in our environment and slow climate change. (SDG 13 Climate Action).

We measure impact by through the following metrics in a given period of time;

1. The number of rural hubs we are able to build to provide our solar agro services to smallholder farmers in rural communities;

2. The total number of farmers we are able to reach with our clean and affordable energy agro services (SDG 7)

3. The amount of money farmers are able to save from using our solar agro services (SDG 1)

4. The quantity of arable land irrigated, food produced and perishables saved from post harvest losses (SDG 2)

5. The number of rural jobs we are able to create through rural agents managing our rural solar hubs (SDG 8)

6. The amount of carbon emission we are able to curtail through the use of our solar agro equipment as alternative to fossil fuel equipment. (SDG 13)

Our core technology is the use of solar technology which works by harnessing the energy from the sun and converting it into usable electricity or heat. When the sun shines onto our solar panel, energy from the sunlight is absorbed by the PV cells in the panel. This energy creates electrical charges that move in response to an internal electrical field in the cell, causing electricity to flow. This electricity is used to power motors for our irrigation machine that suck and pumps out water to farms and threshing threshing machine rotates which an iron rod that in a compartment that easily peels grains of it stalks. For our solar dryer, we use a simple technique that collect heat from the sun, this heat collector are coated with dark paint and transparent glass at the top and back of the dryer. Each heat collector is attached with a DC fan that is powered by a solar panel and charge controller to drive in warm air into the drying chamber.   

12 people in total

5 full time and 4 part time

3 contractor and metal fabricators

We have been working on this solution for 2 years+

Our team is open and diverse and gender equality is a core fundamental principle on our team and even to the people we serve. We 46% of our total team are women and we continue to strive to ensure equality and fairness in our daily obligation as a team. We are currently training and enrolling 3 young women to join our technical team, this is usually a role assigned to male counterpart but because of our gender balance view, we believe women when given the opportunity can perform well just like their male colleagues. Also, our rural solar hubs are manage by women, this is creating jobs for women in the rural communities we operate.

We have two business model

1. Pay-per-use for our agricultural services of solar irrigation, threshing and drying. We provide farmers with our solar agro services (irrigation, grain threshing and drying) and they only pay when they use any of our service either for the number of hours they rent the irrigation pump or kilograms of grains threshed and perishables dried. This service is offered by our rural agent via our rural solar hubs to enable smallholder farmers in rural communities have easy access to our clean energy and mechanized agro services.

2. Outright sale/lease-to-own of our solar agri equipment: We also offer our solar agro equipment for sale. On this model we target after Large Farmers,  cooperatives or organizations such as NGO's, govenment institutions because they have the purchasing power to buy this machineries.

Our plan to become financially sustainable is majorly through our business model and revenue stream. This are

1. Offering our solar agro services on a pay-per-use basis to smallholder farmers via our rural solar hubs.  Our services currently cost;

Irrigation service cost: $2 for a 10 hours

Threshing service cost: $4 per ton

Drying service cost: $3 per ton

Targeted at our primary market (smallholder farmers) through our rural solar hubs

2. From selling our solar agro equipment to targeted buyer. This cost are;

Solar irrigation pump cost: $806

Solar Thresher: $2350

Solar Dryer: $1,290

we make 30 to 40% profit margin of sales

Targeted at our secondary market (government institutions, NGO's, large farming cooperatives)

We also plan to be financially sustainable by going into partnerships and contracts with international NGO's and Government institutions for the supply of our solar agro equipments. For example, we are in the final phase of a contract to supply 200 units of our solar irrigation pump to the Kaduna State Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and also an international NGO called PROPCOM+ for the supplies of our solar multigrain threshing machine to 3 northern state in Nigeria.