Press Release: $1.7 Million Funding Boost for Innovators Advancing Clean Energy Agriculture Technology
Eleven successful organisations will use the support to develop agricultural technologies that improve post-harvest resilience and productivity of food systems in dairy, fish and horticulture value chains.
According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia’s food systems play a critical role by producing approximately 30% of most food commodities. However, 85% of smallholder farmers lack access to energy, and food loss and waste is around 37% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Access to sustainable and affordable technologies such as cold storage or solar-powered drying of produce can support the reduction of food loss and improve access to market.
Included in the winning technologies are the following: CoolVeg Foundation, which specialises in developing evaporative cooling chambers to provide pre-cooling for fruits and vegetables at the farmgate; Synnefa, an IoT greenhouse solar dryer technology, focusing primarily on the mango value chain; Savanna Circuit Technologies, a solar-powered universal chiller innovation to support last-mile cold chain logistics for fishing activities in Lake Victoria and arid and semi-arid areas of East Africa. Finally, Rural Aquaculture Development Rukungiri, who plan to develop an ultra-low Global Warming Potential, low-cost refrigerated cool box system for the fish value chain in Uganda.
The full list of successful grantees and their technologies can be found on our Agritech Call page.
The projects will include field trials to take place in the coming year in a number of countries including Kenya, Tanzania, India and Uganda.
Photo courtesy of UN Women Africa.
Source: Efficiency for Access (link opens in a new window)
- Categories
- Agriculture
