Dear SunCulture Supporters,
As you read these words, food insecurity is peaking in the Horn of Africa. Across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, farmers have suffered two years of poor rainy seasons and depressed crop yields. One of our customers, Ruth, told us that she spent last year waiting for the rain to fall, while watching her crops dry up. This story is too common among the 96 percent of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa who rely on rain-fed agriculture.
It doesn’t have to be this way. At SunCulture, we’ve seen that getting the right technology into the hands of smallholder farmers empowers them to take control of their environments. Since getting a SunCulture system in January, Ruth can access all the water she needs. She’s growing more crops for her family and to sell to the market, including peas, cabbage, and kale. When we asked her how irrigation has impacted her life, she said, “I can farm without fear.”
These stories are at the heart of what we do.
And we’re thrilled to see more and more stakeholders share our conviction that agriculture technology (“AgTech”) is at the core of unlocking smallholder productivity, resilience, and incomes. Investors put US$16.9 billion in global AgTech companies in 2018, a 43 percent year-over-year increase. The concept of “productive use energy” has taken off as a way to think about how we can use access to energy to drive income-generating activities, particularly for the rural poor, who are least likely to be connected to the grid. All the while, there has been an incredible rise in the number of organizations investing time, energy, and resources into learning how to scale solar irrigation in Africa.
Today, I’d like to add to this exciting conversation by sharing SunCulture’s biggest technology developments this year, as well as some thoughts on how to catalyze the mass uptake of these technologies for the benefit of smallholder farmers everywhere.
Our Research and Development team had an incredible year. We launched two award-winning products, RainMaker2 with ClimateSmart Battery™ and ClimateSmart Direct™. In a competition among the best-in-class products in our space and the largest pump companies in the world, we were recognized by the Global LEAP Awards as having the world’s best off-grid solar water pumps in two categories.
Here’s what helped us stand out among the impressive crowd: one of the best features of RainMaker2 with ClimateSmart Battery™ (as you might’ve guessed from the name) is the battery. Energy storage means that the pumps can run on a cloudy day or during the night. It also means that a single system gives farmers the ability to power both appliances that improve quality of life in the household (such as lights and phone chargers) and appliances that generate income for agriculture (such as water pumps for irrigation or TVs loaded with episodes of the agriculture training show Shamba Shape Up).
“RainMaker2 provides light, with no black out and no charges” said our customer, David. “It is easier to get water, and I can irrigate the way I want. I have expanded two acres. I can sell products at higher prices during dry season. I can now leave the pump and come back. It works by itself.”