One of the forgotten customer segments when it comes to energy access is the small-holder farmers’ irrigation customer segment. These customers are the ones who are struggling with dirty and expensive diesel fuel to irrigate their land using diesel pumps, facing post-harvest loss because of lack of post-harvest management technology, lack of finance to invest on technology and being affected by brokers who decide a selling price for their produce.
However, this problem didn’t go unnoticed by Rensys, which is a pioneer energy solution provider in Ethiopia. Rensys got technical and financial support from Feed the Future’s Innovation Lab for Small-Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) project which is a USAID funded cooperative agreement led by Texas A&M University and technically supported by the International water management Institute (IWMI) to implement a pilot project in three regions of Ethiopia, i.e. Oromia, Amhara, and SNNP.
The project entails four core solutions to solve the above-mentioned four problems of small-holder farmers. These are;
- Small-scale solar irrigation pump to get rid of expensive diesel powered irrigation;
- Solar cold room service provision to extend shelf life of perishable produces so that small-holders get an extended time to negotiate with buyers;
- Mobile-app market linkage that will eliminate involvement of brokers since the app will create linkage between farmers and off-takers and;
- To increase their investment capacity, the solar pumps we are selling are being sold in a Pay-As-You-Go business model which gives flexibility for farmers to pay off the pump cost over extended time of up to 2 years. Small-holder famers also get the solar cold room service based on agreed service-fee.
In the course of project life span 1137 solar irrigation pump distribution and 4 cold storage installations in three regions are key figures to be met
We are closely working with local partners like Regional irrigation offices, Cooperative Union, Local Merchants, and Financial service providers to successfully implement the project.
One of the forgotten customer segments when it comes to energy access is the small-holder farmers’ irrigation customer segment. This customer segment is the one who is struggling with dirty and expensive diesel fuel to irrigate their land using diesel pump, faces post-harvest loss because of lack of post-harvest management technology, lack of finance to invest on technology and being affected by brokers who decide a selling price for their produce.
However, this problem didn’t go unnoticed by Rensys, which is a pioneer energy solution provider in Ethiopia. Rensys got technical and financial support from Feed the Future’s Innovation Lab for Small-Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) project which is a USAID funded cooperative agreement led by Texas A&M University and technically supported by the International water management Institute (IWMI) to implement a pilot project in three regions of Ethiopia, i.e. Oromia, Amhara, and SNNP regions.
The project has four core solutions to solve the above-mentioned four problems of small-holder farmers. These are;
- Small-scale solar irrigation pump to get rid of expensive diesel powered irrigation;
- Solar cold room service provision to extend shelf life of perishable produces so that small-holders get an extended time to negotiate with buyers;
- Mobile-app market linkage that will eliminate involvement of brokers since the app will create linkage between farmers and off-takers and;
- To increase their investment capacity, the solar pumps we are selling are being sold in a Pay-As-You-Go business model which gives flexibility for farmers to pay off the pump cost over extended time of up to 2 years. Small-holder famers also get the solar cold room service based on agreed service-fee.
In the course of project life span 1137 solar irrigation pump distribution and 4 cold storage installations in three regions are key figures to be met
We are closely working with local partners like regional irrigation offices, Cooperative Union, Local Merchants, and Financial service providers to successfully implement the project.
