Afrigather This text was contributed to TechCabal by Sefakor Fekpe through bird story agency.
Isaac Sesi picks up a small bucket of maize to exhibit the newest iteration of his moisture-measuring system. Powering the system with batteries, he presses a button. A white display screen reveals the sorts of grain to pick out for the take a look at; he selects the maize class after which presses one other button to take the studying. Sesi is demonstrating the newest mannequin of the GrainMate moisture meter, his resolution to countering meals loss in rural farming communities.
“Moisture content material is without doubt one of the bodily portions which can be important in figuring out the standard of your finish product, so we have now provide you with the GrainMate to make it simple to know the way a lot moisture content material you’ve got in your product,” Sesi defined.
As a younger man from a farming neighborhood within the Ashanti area of Ghana, Sesi turned conversant in the challenges of storing grain the onerous method, witnessing the difficulties his mother and father and different farmers skilled when attempting to retailer their farm produce. He devoted his tutorial profession to discovering an answer to this meals loss.
His first iteration of the system was accomplished in 2018. The concept was to assist farmers, aggregators, feed producers and anybody within the grain worth chain to simply measure moisture content material of their grain earlier than storage, feed preparation or processing.
“One facet of meals safety is within the technique of having the ability to scale back or mitigate post-harvest losses as a result of 30 per cent of the meals that we produce is misplaced and if we will lower down on these losses, that may bode effectively for our meals safety as a result of the meals that’s being misplaced is meals that may feed different individuals,” Sesi shared.
At present, Sesi Applied sciences’ GrainMate is cheaper in comparison with different, imported, moisture meter manufacturers.
Sesi’s firm presents two fashions. One is for normal grains, which is offered at 800 Ghanaian cedis ( about US$65) whereas a second mannequin extends to high-value commodities reminiscent of shea nuts. That model prices 1000 Ghanaian cedis (about US$83).
Sesi graduated from Kwame Nkrumah College of Science and Know-how (KNUST) and used his remaining 12 months analysis challenge to provide you with the GrainMate.
“In Ghana, with analysis, you simply end and put it on the shelf so you progress on along with your life however we thought that we developed one thing fairly good so we needed to make it helpful to farmers so I began Sesi Applied sciences to commercialise the output of my analysis at KNUST,” Sesi mentioned.
The corporate’s breakthrough got here with a sale of 150 of the gadgets. Since then, Sesi has trusted income from gross sales of moisture metres and different companies, whereas his firm has acquired funding from a spread of sources.
“We began with no cash, completely no cash. We simply began by attempting to commercialise this expertise and the way we have been in a position to manufacture our first batch was that we received some pre-orders so we requested the consumer to pay for 70% in order that we might use it to finance the preliminary stock,” Sesi shared.
Sesi was decided to achieve as many farmers as he might, which pushed him to take part in several start-up assist programmes. He emerged as the general winner of the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize, an award for African agri-food innovators and entrepreneurs who’re growing options for the agriculture worth chain, in 2019.
“We received the general US$50,000 prize”.
This prize helped him to scale each manufacturing and human assets.
“We have now about 25 individuals in our staff and that tells you that our wage invoice each month is substantial and we’re making progress. We even have our subject staff who’re accountable for offering companies that we offer to farmers,” he defined.
Over 5,000 farmers have now tried out the system, with uptake nonetheless slower than he and his staff of principally 20-somethings would really like.
“There’s very gradual adoption to new expertise and so we have now not seen the type of speedy adoption that we’re ,” he defined.
Nevertheless, suggestions from the present pool of customers retains Sesi and his staff motivated.
“As an illustration, poultry farmers use our system to examine the moisture content material of the totally different parts of the feed earlier than they put it collectively. After they do this they inform us that when they know the moisture content material they see the standard of the feed is excessive, productiveness is excessive and their birds don’t undergo from illnesses as a result of our system helps them.
“There was a time when the system was not there to examine the precise moisture for storage, I bagged the maize considering that they have been protected however after I wanted them at a degree to make use of them they have been all inexperienced within the bag and I misplaced some huge cash,” defined Kofi Korsah, a industrial maize and poultry farmer and considered one of Sesi Applied sciences’ shoppers.
Joseph Oppong Akowuah, a neighborhood professor and professional in post-harvest administration who makes use of the system to teach farmers defined the significance of getting younger entrepreneurs like Sesi innovate and promote native options.
“It could assist farmers transfer away from the indigenous method of checking the extent of moisture of their produce through the use of a scientific method…These are very vital,” he defined.
Akowuah believes the federal government’s assist for entrepreneurs like Sesi beneath the Planting for Meals and Jobs (PFJ), an initiative aimed toward rising manufacturing and rising income for farmers, may have a far-reaching influence.
“If we wish to get this expertise on a large scale, there have to be some type of coverage intervention from the federal government as a result of I feel one of many vital points has to do with coaching, publicity, and making farmers conscious of a few of these applied sciences,” he suggested.
Sesi is optimistic about development and is eyeing a neighborhood manufacturing facility using expert engineers to extend manufacturing capability and push mass adoption of the GrainMate system.
“In the long run, the aim is to have the ability to produce and assemble extra,” he mentioned.
