MIT spinout Safi Organics utilizes crop residue to make organic fertilizer to help rural farmers in Kenya enhance the yield of their farmlands. Credit: Courtesy of Safi Organics
MIT spinout Safi Organics uses farmers crop residue to make a natural fertilizer that can increase yields and improve soil health.
The majority of industrial fertilizer travels a long method before it reaches rural farmers in Kenya. Transport expenses force many farmers to depend on inexpensive, artificial fertilizers, which can result in the acidification and destruction of their soil with time.
The situation amounts to a multigenerational crisis as senior citizens have viewed their crop yields decrease over the course of decades.
Now Safi Organics is using a technology refined at MITs D-Lab to make natural fertilizer that can help bring back such farmlands. The fertilizer is made in your area using the residue from crops after harvest.
Safi buys crop residue like rice husks from the farmers and processes it close-by prior to offering it back to farmers at competitive prices. The business states its fertilizer has been revealed to reduce the acidification of soil and increase crop yields by as much as 30 percent after a single planting cycle.
Today each of Safis centers can produce fertilizer for countless farmers as much as 20 miles away. Furthermore, because Safis biochar is rich in inert carbon, when its utilized as fertilizer, it is sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Credit: Courtesy of Safi Organics
Thats a life-altering increase for farmers who rely on their crops to endure. Farmers have actually utilized the additional crop sales to feed their households, send their kids to school, and gain monetary self-reliance.
” Safi is decentralizing fertilizer production such that it can be brought out in rural towns for the very first time,” Safi co-founder and primary technology officer Kevin Kung SM 13, PhD 17 says.
The company has been working with farmers in Kenya since 2015. More than 5,000 farmers have purchased Safi Organics fertilizer to date. Kung says those farmers have actually reported an overall increase of $800,000 in earnings from increased crop yields.
Now Safi is seeking to bring its model to India and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
A long journey
By the end of 2012, Kung had actually invested up of 3 years on a research job to turn organic waste like crop residue from towns in Africa into charcoal for cooking fuel. Over the course of those efforts, Kung got support from the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Fellowship, the MIT Tata Center, the MIT Legatum Center, and the MIT IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge program.
Sadly, a series of stopped working pilot projects left him browsing for a sustainable organization model as his group of MIT students gradually dissolved. Kung chose to utilize some of his funding to travel to Kenya in the summer season of 2013 and partner with a local partner.
After making a task description, he was contacted by an agribusiness supervisor named Samuel Rigu. With Kungs PhD work ongoing, he hired Rigu to run operations in Kenya as he returned to MIT at the end of the summer season.
Right after Rigu started heading the project, Kung began to appreciate his company mind.
Rigu discovered that the charcoal they were making could also be utilized as fertilizer for growing crops if combined with other nutrients. The surprise paved the way for localized fertilizer production that would provide advantages over the high cost of imported synthetic fertilizers.
Rigu knew the downside of cheap, artificial fertilizers well: He d matured in a bad rural farming community and remembered his grandmother weeping as she spoke about the familys land slowly losing its vigor.
Kung was doubtful about producing fertilizer, however Rigu persuaded him to check out the concept with a small group of farmers. When harvest season came, a few of the farmers utilizing the formulation almost doubled their yields (pH tests later showed the fertilizer assisted combat the acidification brought on by other farming strategies). Rigu and Kung enjoyed with amazement as the additional earnings triggered ripple effects in the neighborhood: Impoverished farmers used the extra funds to send their children to school and additional enhance their farms.
The creators chose to set up a business offering the soil formulation. They called it Safi Organics.
Today each of Safis production facilities can supply fertilizer for countless farmers approximately 20 miles away. Furthermore, since Safis biochar is abundant in inert carbon, when its used as fertilizer, it is sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.
Kungs PhD evolved into a job to develop low-cost, portable biomass conversion systems to be released in rural locations like the small farms Safi works with. “But we had to discover how to engage regional partners and acknowledge that often they are going to end up being the champs of these initiatives, not always us, and theyll have the final say in the instructions of things.”
Collaborations for impact
Supply chain disturbances triggered by Covid-19 have made Safis in your area made fertilizer an important part of farmers lives. Kung states the business offered more than 40 lots of fertilizer last year alone.
This year Safis group is wanting to bring its model to other parts of the world where rural farmers are paying too much for cheap fertilizers. The company is starting studies in Tanzania and Uganda to see if local partners can stand sustainable organizations on their own. The model is also being duplicated by another group in India with farmers in northern Punjab, who have different kinds of crop residue to process.
For Kung, Safis success has actually shown the worth of empowering local partners to make organization decisions for the communities they understand so well.
” I was at first pretty doubtful of the entire concept [of pivoting to fertilizer],” Kung says. “I didnt think it was feasible. But the local group actually proved me wrong and has confirmed the enhanced yield and the influence on farmers. For me, its been a motivating journey.”
Today each of Safis centers can produce fertilizer for thousands of farmers up to 20 miles away. Furthermore, because Safis biochar is abundant in inert carbon, when its used as fertilizer, it is sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. More than 5,000 farmers have purchased Safi Organics fertilizer to date. Kung was skeptical about producing fertilizer, but Rigu persuaded him to try out the idea with a little group of farmers. When harvest season came, some of the farmers utilizing the solution nearly doubled their yields (pH tests later showed the fertilizer assisted combat the acidification caused by other farming methods).
