Solar Powered Agro-Processing: The optimisation of pioneering productive use solar milling technologies in East Africa

Opportunity: 40m people in Kenya depend on the agricultural sector for their livelihoods and subsistence. The most important staple food they depend on is maize, which accounts for over 65% of their calorific intake. Affordable, accessible and quality milling services are key to ensuring and increasing nutritional value and economic empowerment for smallholder farmer communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Off-grid grain milling has the potential to increase farming efficiency, increase farmer revenue, and promote food security, yet incumbent options are expensive to use and operate, are polluting and have limited accessibility for the primary users, women. 74% of maize milled in Kenya comes from small-scale, off-grid 'posho' hammer mills. The majority of these poshos mills are diesel powered and as a result have high capital and operating costs and the potential for negative environmental impacts (e.g. pollution and GHG emissions). Furthermore, diesel mills are only viable in larger communities, meaning people in smaller villages experience hardship accessing these essential services. Transporting maize to and from the nearest mill is physically taxing and incredibly time-consuming; a task invariably handled by women. Solution: Agsol manufactures leading edge, solar powered and grid powered, agro-processing machines for off-grid farming communities. Our life-changing machines convert the most important staple foods into edible and higher value food products. They also catalyse access to higher tier solar energy -- 500 to 1000W scale. By linking productive machines with solar power, Agsol provides off-grid communities with a new tool to improve their agricultural productivity and gain access to energy services. For urban and on-grid customers Agsol provides a highly efficient, low operational cost and non-polluting income generator. Project: The project will market test and commercialise Agsol's latest innovation – the MicroMill. We will deploy 10 MicroMill v1s for the initial field pilot. This will test the basic functionality and market response to the product. The feedback from this pilot will inform another product design iteration to develop the MicroMill v2.1s, of which another 10 units will be manufactured for another field pilot round. These initial field trials will be used for technical and market testing purposes to understand any failure points or issues with the machine, and how the unit economics and product market fit works. They will provide valuable feedback on future roll-out and commercialisation, helping to deliver a disruptive, but affordable, effective and resource-efficient milling solution for East African small holder farmers, urban and peri-urban millers. The MicroMill v2.1s will be deployed in different configurations, environments and customer segments across Kenya and East Africa. These customers segments include rural agricultural communities and urban and peri-urban entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs, for which there is also a large and accessible market.