Growing up in a semi-arid region in Kenya, Joyce Kamande witnessed the stark reality of poverty and food insecurity in the country. So widespread was the poverty that children from some households in her area would go to bed or school without having any daily meal. The experience had such a profound impact on her that she vowed to change their situation at some point in her life.
Internet-of-Things (IoT)
An opportunity to fulfil this dream presented itself when she volunteered to assist a friend with her research in waste management. In 2015, soon after she graduating from university, the pair co-founded Safi Organics to produce carbon negative fertilisers for local small farmers. What distinguished their business from others is that it deploys a combination of hardware technology and IoT to ensure a real-time control and sensing system. The technology is essential in decentralising and downsizing the fertilising process and making it feasible to implement production in rural villages using only local resources, labour and waste.
Custom Tailored Production Processes
According to Kamande, the adoption of technology enables them to eliminate long-distance fertiliser transportation and also to drastically reduce fertiliser costs while offering farmers a higher-quality product. Not only are their fertilisers locally produced, but are also carbon-negative and helps farmers improve yields by 30%.
In addition, because Safi Organics’ fertiliser production process can be implemented locally at village level, they are able to alter the reaction conditions and custom-tailor the fertiliser characteristics (e.g., pH, N, P, K) to local soil type and crop growth requirements. This is something a traditional one-size-fits-all fertiliser production cannot achieve. Additionally, soil testing and agronomical services are also offered.
Saving Energy, Water and the Soil
According to Kamande, the model and technology they used is also crucial the energy-food nexus, eliminating most of the high energy and fuel costs required to produce synthetic, chemical fertilisers in large-scale, centralised plants and import these to rural areas. Similarly, their solution helps the soil retain moisture and nutrients more effectively so farmers can reduce the amount of chemical inputs and irrigation needed for their crops to succeed by more than 15%.
IoT and its Benefits
Kamande says their technology is validated and tested at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It utilises a novel chemical process called oxygen-lean torrefaction to rapidly break down the long hard-to-digest cellulosic chains thermos-chemically. The resultant substrate is sufficiently organically rich to support microbial growth and retain nutrients or moisture in the soil more effectively. This substrate is mixed with a special nutrient recipe, (dependent on the soil and crop requirements), into a standalone fertiliser, Safi Sarvi.
“Our process takes only four hours to complete without requiring any external energy or fuel inputs. Ultimately, our differentiation comes from a new business model enabled by new technology. Most existing fertiliser companies are large-scale (100+ tonnes/day) and take advantage of the economy of scale. This technology allows us unique access to rural, decentralised, small pockets of biomass for localised utilisation larger technologies cannot reach. Our hardware systems are affordable enough for most local community-based operators to own,” Kamande explained.
Safi Organics remotely co-ordinates their fleet of reactors, applying machine learning to adjust reaction conditions in real-time to variable feedstock input, matching and optimising products to real-time agricultural demand. This market match-making affords Safi Organics an option to become a software service provider, where it can charge a per ton fee for using its equipment fleet. “This model has been proven in other sectors such as nano-fabrication, but we are the first player in the biomass-to-value sector to deploy this approach, which would not have been possible without our portable and flexible conversion technology,” Kamande says.
Creating direct employment for the youth
As operations officer, Kamande’s key role is to streamline Safi Organics’ business functions and has resulted in employment for more than 50 rural youths. It has a workforce of 65 in total and is currently supplying bespoke fertilisers across Kenya to over 35,000 rural smallholder farmers. One smallholder farmer, a direct beneficiary of the Safi Organics’ business model, farms in rural Kirinyaga County in Kenya.
With a one hectare plot, the farmer (Mr Kibuchi) has seen his yields decline because of his dependence on synthetic fertilisers. This meant he was no longer able to support his children from the land. “But after he adopted our product he increased his yields by 50% after just one season. He was able to sell the excess produce and generated enough cash to send two of his children to school,” Kamande said.
Safi Organics, at the hand of two innovative young women, have positively impacted the lives of more than 12,000 farmers like Mr Kibuchi and are continuing to do so.
