Agri Matters Podcast: Interview With AquaFarms Africa Co-Founder On Empowering Women With Aquaponics
In the latest episode of the Agri Matters Podcast, we spoke to Wiatta Thomas, co-founder of AquaFarms Africa, an agritech startup based in Conakry, Guinea. She told us about implementing aquaponics technology, a combination of fish farming and soilless vegetable growing, in Africa.
In this ecosystem, the fish excrete waste that is converted by beneficial bacteria to nutrients for the plants, which purify the water in return.
"The focus of AquaFarms Africa was to locally produce fruits and vegetables that normally are imported because they're not able to be produced in Guinea," said Thomas. The produce would be sold to high-end restaurants and hotels that offer higher margins.
Aquaponics is also generally considered more efficient than conventional farming. It is more productive on a per square meter basis and requires 95% less water than traditional agriculture. It is also completely organic.
For the last nine years, Thomas has lived in Guinea and worked across West Africa in youth economic development, giving her a deep understanding of entrepreneurial ecosystems and promising agricultural value chains. She has also built a business incubator called Dare-to-Innovate. She actively promotes economic development and African diaspora investment in the continent, with agriculture being a priority sector.
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Here are some of the highlights from the interview:
Pinduoduo: How did the idea of AquaFarms Africa come about?
Thomas: What I found is that it's very, very difficult on the continent for young people especially to start agribusinesses, for several reasons. One is that there's a lack of capital. So the idea was that rather than just start an aquaponics farm ourselves, what we would do is create or design a franchise system.
Pinduoduo: Why did you or your partner choose aquaponics?
Thomas: The main reason was that we needed a way to have a closed system that would allow us to control the temperature in order to produce some things that wouldn't normally grow in a tropical climate or very intense weather conditions. So aquaponics gave us a way to control the entire environment in which we're growing our produce.
(In the aquaponics system,) you can't put chemicals because it'll kill the fish. So automatically, you're going to have organic produce. And so it's really an all-natural system. We really wanted to recreate an environment inside of our greenhouses.
Pinduoduo: What kind of yield can we expect?
Thomas: One farm (12 by 12 foot) will produce somewhere around one ton of vegetable and fruit product that doesn't include fish product. We haven't included that yet in our total revenue system — it's more just to keep the system going. But we will be selling fruit shrimp and tilapia fish later on.
Pinduoduo: Do you work with local lending partners to provide loans to franchisees?
Thomas: Part of the loan system is provided by investments from the diaspora. Some of it is with partnerships with local banking systems that we've already started forging. So it's a combination of all of that. Because it's very, very hard for a young person to come off the bat and be able to get loans in Guinea.
Pinduoduo: What are the training and technical support provided?
Thomas: We are building an app that we haven't deployed yet. But in 2021, we're going to be deploying it that will allow our franchisees to be able to monitor their system so all of the indicators, such as the nutrient levels, or the temperature in the system, through IoT devices that will be placed in their systems, and will be able to monitor or to track growing schedules, harvesting and planting with an app.
Pinduoduo: Does this technology gives women more opportunities than traditional farming?
Thomas: It's actually more geared toward women. And the great thing is that because it's not as strenuous of work, and because it's in urban areas, we can give a lot more opportunities to women who are in urban areas and who are unemployed.
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Agri Matters is a podcast about cutting-edge technology and innovation in agriculture. From scientists, venture capitalists to startup founders, we talk to the people responsible for bringing food from farm to table. Subscribe to Agri Matters on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and other major podcast platforms.
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