A Solar-Powered Micro-Mill is Making a Major Impact for Off-Grid Farming Communities
Being in Kenya for the 8th Global Off-Grid Solar Forum & Expo gave my GOGLA colleagues and I the opportunity to see some action on the ground. We left the hustling Nairobi traffic behind us to check out how the latest innovations in solar milling are changing the food processing landscape for women and men in rural areas. In Kenya, 70% of the population live in rural areas and depend on local food supply. 35% of people in rural areas are also unelectrified.
Mill for a meal
If you’ve been to Kenya, you must know Kenyans love their ugali. What you might not know, is that the majority of this maize-based dish is produced from maize that is processed in polluting diesel-powered posho (“livelihood”) mills. Worse still, many of these mills – having been in use for decades, poorly maintained and rarely cleaned inside the housing – harbour cancer-causing mycotoxin contaminants.
The same was true for Doreen Njoroge, a married mother of 3 children who lives in rural Kenya. She works with her family on a small piece of land to produce several crops, including maize and beans. To bring their beloved ugali to the table at night, Doreen takes a small amount of grain to the nearest posho mill at the end of the long working day. If she’s lucky, the mill in the neighbouring village at 5 kilometres is operating. More often, she has to wait another hour for the operator to have a queue of customers long enough so that turning on the 2×2 meters, 500kg diesel-powered mill is worth his while; or decide to walk to the next village. Another 5 (or more) kilometres back home before it’s dinner time.
A hammer-and-impact driven solution
Award-winning social business Agsol aims to make a difference for off-grid farming communities, like Doreen’s. Their solar-powered hammer mill doesn’t just bring clean energy to productive agricultural practices, it contributes to improved health outcomes for end-users. Diesel-powered mills are on the one hand polluting the environment, and on the other, pose a risk to user’s health, due to poor moisture management and lack of machine maintenance increasing the chance of aflatoxin contamination. [1] 60% of Kenya’s maize flour is processed informally and farmers are reluctant to pay for grain drying services that could reduce contamination. Solar-powered mills are therefore providing a cheaper alternative for even cleaner and finer flour.
Agsol’s energy-efficient milling machines, typically pay for themselves in less than 2 years, but can be as little as 1 year in high utilisation cases. The machines, integrated with PAYGo and compatible with 48V battery systems, allow for interoperability with other appliances. The mill’s robust and mobile design requires minimal maintenance – designed to last for 6000hrs (that’s a lot of milling!). Working at 75kg per KwH, the micro-mill is 2.5 times more efficient than mills of a similar size.
Operating at the nexus of food, energy, and health, a solar powered micro-mill gives not only households, but entire communities the opportunity to move away from fossil-fuel powered milling and step into a world of better-quality, lower-priced and closer-to-home agricultural practices.
A journey of change
After learning more about the micro-mill through one of her local market visits, Doreen overcame initial reluctancy to change by calculating the potential savings, both in milling costs and time! The demonstration in the village by Agsol’s distribution partner pulled her over the line to start the conversation with her husband. Successfully having convinced Mr Njoroge, the family managed to secure a SACCO loan, which allowed them to have the mill delivered at their land in 2022.
The mill has not only given Doreen access to cleaner flour powered by renewable energy, it’s been a tool to increase her income and provide services for her neighbours and local community. Like Doreen, 68% of Agsol operators in Kenya are women (the figure for traditional ‘posho’ mills is about 5%). A lightweight, easy to operate mill removes the barrier of perceived mechanical complexity and cultural norms.
Matt Carr, CEO and Co-Founder of Agsol tells us that most operators charge between 5 and 20 shillings for a kg of flour. Beyond this, he’s learned that with more women now playing the role of mill operator, they are offering inherited nutritional advice to customers too – suggesting different blends of grain to provider better nutritional quality in flour for new mothers, for example. A solar powered mill offers much more than an energy solution – it’s changing the food and nutrition landscape of communities.
Whilst small-scale solar milling presents an efficient alternative to the prevalent use of diesel engines for grain milling in Sub-Saharan Africa, there’s only a handful of companies that are testing prototypes and business models for these emerging technologies. However, the projected serviceable market for solar milling in Sub-Saharan Africa however is estimated to reach $417 million by 2030. In order to realize this development, reducing operational costs or enabling the production of outputs that allow users to engage with broader agricultural value chains, such as flour production is needed. On top of that, customer education on the negative implications of diesel-powered mills, followed by a cultural shift – it’s difficult to change an embedded practice – will help to create a flourishing market for solar mill providers like Agsol.
Agsol has created a product that is clearly meeting the needs of women within the agro-processing value chain. Solutions such as this can be transformative to livelihoods and resilience. To meet universal energy goals and deliver a just energy transition, more companies need to adopt solutions that cater for women’s needs and meet them where they currently act in value chains, but where they could be.
Understanding the role and impact of PURE technologies, as well as the barriers for adoption for women customers is crucial for companies aiming to develop gender-smart business approaches. GOGLA, with Distil Inclusion, has conducted a study to examine the solar milling, cooling and irrigation ecosystem with a gender lens to support PURE companies with strategies to better understand and serve their women customers.
Learn more about Agsol’s case study here, and check how you can start (better) using gender-disaggregated data here.
[1]Flour produced in the formal value chain has to meet standards of minimum contamination levels. However, in practice, many informal mills do not adhere to these requirements.
This article is part of the #puttingsolartowork series, which highlights GOGLA member companies working in productive uses such as cooling, irrigating or milling.
The IKEA Foundation is supporting GOGLA to strengthen and develop the global industry around Productive Use of Renewable Energy (PURE).
Source: GOGLA
