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The
MoneyMaker has raised Harun Atemi's income from $7-$12 a week |
In
a village in Western Kenya, a farmer is poised atop his “MoneyMaker Plus”, a
manual irrigation pump made by a non-governmental organization called ApproTec,
(Appropriate Technology for Enterprise Creation), based in the capital city,
Nairobi.
It
is an evening in the summer month of January, and as the sun turns into a red
ball that slowly sinks into the horizon, the farmer, Harun Atemi, races to
quench the thirst of the black cotton soils on which his one and a half acre
farm stands. It has been a hot day and dry easterly winds blow caressing his
sinewy muscles as he shifts back and forth on the two pedals of the pump as if
exercising in a gymnasium.
Water
courses up from a nearby stream and the pump pressurizes it sending it spraying
through a sprinkler fitted on the hosepipe over his vegetable garden on which he
has planted cabbages, pepper, onions, kales and spinach.
Instant
Love
Before
acquiring the MoneyMaker pump, he had been using a bucket to water his crops, an
activity that was rather tedious. Luck struck, however, when he saw a MoneyMaker
pump being demonstrated at a local market center. So much did he like it that he
bought one on the spot at US Dollars 38.
The
initiative has proved fruitful, as it has raised his weekly income from an
average income of 7 US Dollars a week to 12, thus enabling him to meet the daily
needs of his family. He is indeed steadily transforming himself from a
subsistence farmer to a commercial one just like many of his ilk who have
embraced this wonder pump.
Simple
but Powerful
The
MoneyMaker pumps, which include the “Super-MoneyMaker” and the “MoneyMaker-Plus”,
are simple tools but advanced in design. They are an adaptation of the Asian
Treadle Pump, reconfigured into a lighter portable peddle, simple enough that it
can be installed by a farmer and repaired without any tools yet so powerful that
it can irrigate one and a half acres of land a day.
By
using these pumps to irrigate land, a small-scale farmer can grow three or four
crops a year and ensure that they are ready for market when the price is high,
therefore increasing farm yields by 1000 percent.
The
pumps can draw water from a depth of up to 20 feet and deliver it to a height of
43ft-63ft as well as feed four sprinklers. Hence, they are ideal for small-scale
farmers or peasants wishing to venture into agri-business.
Those
are the characteristics that made the “Super-MoneyMaker” pump so popular
that just over a month in 1996 when it was introduced, ApproTEC sold over 300
pieces and has had difficulty keeping up with the burgeoning demand. The story
is the same for the MoneyMaker-Plus pump, introduced in July 2001. ApproTEC
designed and launched this new, very small, leg-operated pump that has only one
piston single cylinder but can still pull water from 23 feet (7m) deep. The pump
has a total pumping head of over 69 feet (21m) and can be used to irrigate as
much as 1.5 acres of land. Its introduction was in response to the demand for an
even lower cost pressure irrigation pump.
Abubakar
Shikanda, a mechanical engineer and one of the over seventy technicians working
at the organization’s headquarters, says that they had to work day and night
to meet the demand for the pumps that were selling like hot cakes. “Our
workshop turned into a bee-hive of activities courtesy of the unprecedented
demand,” he says.
At
the moment, the organization can make only 100 units a month of each type of
pump. It hopes to raise the figure to about 500 pumps over the next two years.
Research
Given a Back Seat
The
agriculture sector in Kenya contributes 55 percent of the gross domestic product
(GDP), provides 80 percent of employment, contributes 60 percent of exports and
generates 45 percent of government revenue. There is no doubt therefore that it
is the mainstay of the national economy and the source of livelihood for the
majority of the country’s citizens.
Unfortunately,
the government has not invested heavily in research and development, which is
key to encouraging job creation and economic development.
It
was against this backdrop that two British expatriates living in Kenya in the
late 1980s, Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, saw that this central element was
missing from development schemes. Realizing how this hindered the creation of
new enterprises that could utilize appropriate business technologies, they set
out to bring change. Fisher, who was in Kenya on a Fullbright scholarship to
study appropriate technology- a catchall term for the simple tools that directly
address the needs of people in development countries, soon discovered that aid
organizations from the West were actually churning out a lot of inappropriate
technology into Kenya as they were doing elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.
He
was to testify that armed with big budgets, these organizations seemed to be
destroying entrepreneurialism in the very communities that they were purporting
to help.
For
instance, the foreign companies that expanded into Kenya in the 1990s sold
expensive products like margarine and toothbrushes when better local
alternatives like seed oil and tooth sticks were easily available and almost
free.
ApproTEC
is Born
Thus
ApproTEC was established as an international enterprise development
non-governmental organization in 1991, with headquarters in Nairobi and offices
in Tanzania and the United States of America. Since its inception, its mission
has been to promote sustainable economic growth and employment creation in East
Africa and other developing countries. To achieve this goal it has endeavoured
to develop and promote technologies that can be utilized by dynamic
entrepreneurs to establish and run small-scale enterprises.
Various
strategies have been employed to enable the organization to accomplish its
mission.
It
identifies small-scale enterprise opportunities and develops technology needed
for the exploitation of such opportunities.
Collaboration
with the private sector to manufacture and distribute new technologies as well
as marketing and promoting them is yet another strategy used. Moreover, the
organization provides marketing, business and product development services to
micro enterprises in addition to monitoring the impact of their technology.
Currently
it prides itself with having outlets in all districts of Kenya as well as a
chain of distributors of its technologies in neighbouring countries.
Coupled
with the above are the beliefs that self motivated entrepreneurs are the most
effective agents of change in the economies in transition, given that they can
raise the minimum capital, posses the skills and capacity to manage their
enterprises but are only hindered by the inability to identify new and viable
opportunities, including accessing and developing technologies that they require
-the reason why ApproTEC has to intervene.
Varied
Technologies
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Technician
demonstrates ApproTEC's oilseed press |
ApproTEC
has rolled out various technologies for wealth creation. None of these
technologies require electricity, rather they take advantage of abundant manual
labour. Furthermore, they do not require literacy skills to operate and are
designed to be durable enough to function under the tough local conditions.
These
technologies include a manually operated oilseed press that extracts oil from
sunflower seeds and has a filter to produce nutritious cooking oil and seed
cake, a by-product that serves as animal feed.
It
also manufactures an Action Block Press for making rammed earth bricks from a
mixture of soil and a small amount of cement. These bricks cost up to 50 percent
less than the conventional walling material and require five to eight people to
produce 400-800 blocks per day.
Domed
and pit-latrine slabs for construction of low-cost sanitary latrines in
semi-urban and rural areas and a hay bailer are other technologies introduced by
ApproTEC that are highly sought after.
But
of all its technologies, it is the micro-irrigation technologies that have
attracted many poor farmers. According to statistics released recently by the
organization, to date 24,000 irrigation pumps are in use, 16,000 new jobs have
been created and US$ 30 million wages and profits generated. Interestingly, 70
percent of the pumps are operated by women entrepreneurs also called
“farmpreneurs” - a social revolution in a society where wealth and ownership
are concentrated in the hands of men.
ApproTEC’s
technology is highly scalable; once designed and marketed it can reach unlimited
numbers of entrepreneurs.
In
Kenya the Ministry of National Planning indicates that about half a million
people enter the job market annually. This figure far outstrips the pace of
industrial growth, which for over ten years has been on the decline. Thus these
technologies, more so the micro-irrigation ones, are playing an important role
in creating jobs and wealth.
A
Solution to the Food Crisis
Never
in the 400 years of traditional irrigation in Kenya has the country stared at
the great opportunity of raising its irrigation potential, which according to
the Ministry of Agriculture stands at 87,350 ha to the maximum 540,000 ha.
Reliance
on rain fed agriculture has hindered the country from fully exploiting its
agricultural potential given that 80 percent of its land is of low moisture
content.
Harnessing
of the country’s irrigation potential coupled with efficient utilization of
available water resources through appropriate water harvesting technologies
would improve the food security situation in marginal areas as well as increase
household incomes. The major outcome of such a scenario would be breaking the
vicious cycle of poverty and curbing environmental degradation so profound in
such areas. As ApproTEC ambitiously sends tentacles into the rest of Sub-Saharan
Africa where 75 percent of those engaging in agriculture are small-scale farmers
entirely dependent on their land for a living and practising subsistence
farming, whose viability is threatened by shrinking land sizes courtesy of
population pressure, a positive impact is expected.
With
traditional methods of farming having failed and Africa requiring three million
tonnes of grain to feed its people by 2025, the new irrigation technology is a
practical solution in fending off the problems of poverty and ensuring food
security, issues whose tackling has been made difficult by the trends of
globalisation.
In
the Offing
Currently
ApproTEC is finalizing trials on what it has dubbed the “little darling”, a
hand pump that costs US Dollars 19, suitable for a kitchen garden and ideal for
those who require an even cheaper pump.
The
organization has also designed drip irrigation kits to ensure efficient use of
water.
This
technology is highly suitable for areas where water is scarce. Features of the
“MoneyMaker” drip kit include an 80-litre tank, water filter, and drip tape,
a collapsible stand and a user’s manual. It retails at US$ 121.
Perhaps
the completion of tests on the “deep-well” pump, which is an initiative of
ApproTEC USA in collaboration with a US based design firm called IDEO, will
catapult the organization to further heights in irrigation technology.
The
manual pump, which will retail at US$ 125, will be very simple for a farmer to
install and will be capable of withdrawing water from 60 feet deep wells.
ApproTEC
is equally collaborating with other firms on manual well drilling techniques
that will reduce the cost of well drilling drastically in order to compliment
its deep well pump.
None
other than the words of Joseph A. Schumpter, an Austrian -American economist,
better sums up the success story of ApproTEC's micro-irrigation technology:
“Without innovation no entrepreneurs, without entrepreneurial achievement, no
capital returns.”
Sources:
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Ministry
of Agriculture-Government of Kenya.
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World
Link the Magazine of the World Economic Forum-January, 2004.
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International
Federation of Agricultural Producers-Presentations at the 3rd World Water
Forum, 16-23 March 2003.
-
Wired
Magazine Issue 10.04, April 2003.
-
ApproTEC
2002 Annual Report.
-
Field
Interviews by Wanzala Bahati Justus.
Wanzala
Bahati Justus is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. Your
emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net.
