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He Harvests Cash From Urban Farming
He Harvests Cash From Urban Farming
Dr Allan Ahimbisibwe displays sukumawiki on his backyard farm. Ahimbisibwe grows several vegetables including cabbage, and tomatoes. Photo by Denis Bbosa
In Summary
- Since many Ugandans are small-scale farmers ventures, Dr. Ahimbisibwe advises those with land and capital not to forsake planting of bananas, cassava, and coffee
- He advises farmers to do research on how to farm short life cycle crops such as onions and watermelons because one acre can yield a farmer about Shs20m if they follow the right practices
By Denis Bbosa
Having less or no land to farm in urban areas should not be an excuse ever again according to Dr Allan Ahimbisibwe. He tells Seeds of Gold’s Denis Bbosa how he is helping many urban dwellers in setting up manageable backyard gardens downplaying the notion that having a garden is prerogative for the well-off.
Dr. Allan Ahimbisibwe, a youthful statistics graduate, is practicing his passion for smart farming to curb the challenges that many give as a reason to run away from agribusiness.
Through his Spark Agro Initiatives company based in Nansana, Ahimbisibwe is teaching various farmers how to use their compounds, regardless of the size, to grow spices and vegetables that are marketable and can be used for home consumption.
His meager demonstration farm has 50 bags and about 10 pots of sukumawiki, cabbages, strawberry and tomatoes that are still at an infant stage.
“Urban farming is very easy even for lazy farmers. We went for vegetables, spices, and herbs because they are not heavy feeder plants like pumpkins or bananas. We plant them in these bags and within months we are yielding,” Ahimbisibwe proudly shows off his well looked after project.
He urges Ugandans to open their eyes and start farming plants with short root systems such as sukumawiki, eggplants, tomatoes, strawberry, cabbages that are eaten every day and grown within three months.
“Most of the vegetables grow in two months, those with leaves grow in one month. We are preaching an idea of getting value from a small place. At harvesting stage, which is soon by the way, I will be getting more than 50 plants a week,” he says.
After his studies at Makerere University, Ahimbisibwe tried to get a bank job but still, his passion for agriculture drove him out to start this venture that has seen him start up over 60 backyard gardens for corporate and high-end customers like affluent politicians. His catchment areas have spread from Kampala to Mbarara and Jinja of late.
No regrets
He says the benefits of home gardening are innumerable; first for health reasons and then fulfilling the World Health Organisation (WHO) directive that one must eat a fruit or vegetable 30 minutes from the garden.
“Money saved is money earned, if each week you save about Shs50,000 that you would have used to buy these vegetables, you would be better off,” he advises.
The need to educate and attract the young people that often want to stay home into farming drives Ahimbisibwe when setting up these compound gardens.
Needless to say, even after substituting flowers, the vegetables, spices and herbs still offer beauty to homesteads.
Economical start
Ahimbisibwe invested just Shs40,000 to start up the demonstration garden but he hopes to reap more than Shs5m after two months. He has been doing this for the last one year spending most on bags (Shs7,000 each), manure and pots.
“The strawberries are expensive and have high market demand which means I have to yield good money once they are harvested,” he says.
His challenge now is getting a standard nursery bed to feed the demonstration farm because the client base is swelling every passing day.
On an average day, over 10 people pass by to get farming knowledge from him and his five employees.
They also offer advisory services for optimum utilization of land, draw business plans for production, management, and marketing, applying best agronomic practices, feeding soils with fertilizers and adopting mixed farming.
After setting up a backyard garden in homes – Dr. Ahimbisibwe and colleagues provide raw materials and keep on monitoring the project until the owners learn how to handle it.
He advises farmers to do research on how to farm short life cycle crops such as onions and watermelons because one acre can yield a farmer about Shs20m if they follow the right practices.
Must grow crops
He says if farmers can, they should rush to grow tomatoes, onions, cabbages in this rainy season because of their marketability, short production span. “Melons started with a capital base of Shs2m on one acre can reap about 7000 pieces which translate in over Shs10m,” he says.
Since many Ugandans are small-scale farmers ventures, Dr. Ahimbisibwe advises those with land and capital not to forsake planting of bananas, cassava, and coffee. His rapid success is attributed to the proper usage of social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp to touch the lives of thousands of craving prospective farmers.
He advises farmers to seek information before investing. He says, “Before you invest Shs1m, why not put Shs40,000 into consultancy and know the best farming practices and trends that will help you get high yields?”
A Young Startup Looking To Change Sustainable Food Production At The Hyper Local Level
August 21, 2017
A Young Startup Looking To Change Sustainable Food Production At The Hyper Local Level
Without a doubt, one of the most pressing issues in the modern world is that of feeding a rapidly expanding global population. Estimates from a UN DESA report in 2015 indicate that the estimated global population by 2050 will rise to over 9.7 billion people, and that over 66% of those people will be living in urban centers. With such staggeringly high numbers of people in urban areas, providing a food production solution that can rise to the challenge of feeding billions every day (while keeping a low enough carbon & land area footprint) and be environmentally and economically viable is one of the most important problems we must solve to prepare for this inevitable future.
Aeroasis, a young & growing AgTech startup based in South Florida hopes to tackle this problem using a hyper local, decentralized approach. Using innovative hydroponic & aeroponic technologies, combined with the most efficient renewable energy harvesting systems available today, Aeroasis aims to impact the food production/distribution industry in preparation for a more crowded world.
Aeroasis has a deep focus on educational work, providing schools & school districts with the resources to start and maintain their own indoor farms, and giving students a thorough understanding of the problems surrounding food production and distribution today. As the next generation of global citizens grows up, these technologies will continue to get exponentially more cost effective, and the young adults that are properly educated will be prepared to enter a world where they can consciously choose to consume and endorse hydroponically grown produce. Beyond just consumption, the use of automation technologies and deep analytics through sensor feedback will allow consumers and urban dwellers to go beyond just consumption, growing much of their produce in-home.
Aeroasis has been developing Oasis Mini, an automated micro Smart Garden, for the last two years in an effort to prove the viability of this concept. Oasis Mini is a 3 chamber automated Smart Gardening system that takes up less space than a fridge, but can produce up to 26 harvests a year in the case of leafy greens like lettuce and cilantro. Small systems like this are great for any urban householder with a green thumb but no space for a garden, and even for consumers with no gardening experience or free time looking to grow a small garden without all the work and mess. Oasis Mini is small, but its ability to grow food at the highest quality using 90% less water, 60% less nutrients, and no pesticides ever is a powerful showcase of the potential for these technologies to be scaled up in the very near future. Removing the concept ofseasonal crops also makes food availability universal, and allows the individual consumer to make conscious and unlimited choices about their nutrition. There is a long list of benefits to growing hyper local, but here are just a few big ones:
- No transportation and packaging means up to 80% less food waste. In the US alone, billions of tons of food are wasted every year, and the majority of that waste happens at the harvest, processing, packaging, and retail levels. Making hyper local systems ensures minimal processing and transportation, significantly reducing waste.
- Using indoor controlled systems means pests are much less of an issue. Pesticide use has been linked to several forms of disease in humans, and eliminating the need for potentially dangerous chemical inputs in the growth process increases the quality and safety of the end product.
- Having communities observe and be a part of the growth process of their food increases awareness and respect for the food grown and results in less consumer side waste. Having community scale Smart Farms incentivizes community outreach and integration and increases the sense of shared responsibility in local groups. This can have an incredibly positive effect on people’s ability to connect and interact peacefully.
- Any excess in harvests can either be given to those in need, or can be sold at a market premium due to its freshness and high quality.
Aeroasis is working hard at building this vision. Their team sees a time in the very near future when either all homes, or at least all communities, will come equipped with a larger scale Smart Farm system that allows them to grow much or all of their produce in-home or at a community center style farming co-op. The core mission at Aeroasis is to facilitate/develop projects like this in an effort to help feed the world while reducing the enormous footprint agriculture leaves on the planet. Aeroasis also does consulting and design work related to projects in community centers, retail spaces, and even individual homes. They provide a range of services from design, fabrication, installation, and maintenance of Smart Gardening systems to doing public speaking and awareness work at conferences, workshops, and other sustainability events.
The Aeroasis CEO, Thomas Wollenberger, just taught a 2 week workshop on sustainable food production in partnership with UNESCO affiliated clubs in the Washington DC area, and is working with several schools and school districts in Florida to bring hydroponics to classrooms. Aeroasis continues to develop initiatives and workshops around the world with strategic partners.
For more information on Aeroasis, what they do, who they are, and how to contact them, you can visit www.aeroasis.com.
Grow Your Salad in Your Closet With The GrowChef Hydroponic Garden
GrowChefis a small indoor garden that promises to let you harvest a full pot of greens every day. Because why pay $15 for a salad when you can just make your own fresher version?
Grow Your Salad in Your Closet With The GrowChef Hydroponic Garden
By Lulu Chang — Posted on July 25, 2017 12:20 pm
WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU
Who needs a supermarket when you have GrowChef? This indoor hydroponic garden will let you make salad more often.
The nearest farmer’s market? Your kitchen. Thanks to the GrowChef, you can enjoy the goodness of fresh farm produce, even in the midst of an urban jungle. Heralded as the “ultimate hydroponic food generator,” the GrowChefis a small indoor garden that promises to let you harvest a full pot of greens every day. Because why pay $15 for a salad when you can just make your own fresher version?
Designed to live just about anywhere in your home, no matter how cramped your space may be, the GrowChef can be hung on a wall, set on a floor or a window sill, or even hidden away in a closet. Because of its three-color LED illumination, this little garden creates enough light on its own so you don’t have to worry about placing it in a sunny spot. And while it measures just 24 inches long, 30 inches tall, and 12 inches wide, it claims to produce the same harvest as a three-meter long garden bed.
Of course, because this is a 21st-century invention, the GrowChef comes with an app that allows you to monitor the progress of your plants. And given that you can grow up to 51 plants at once, that’s a lot of monitoring. Luckily, you don’t have to worry about potting any of these plants, as there’s no soil involved. There’s just nutrient solution and vermiculite, the former of which you replenish once a month.
The three tiers of the GrowChef correspond with three stages of growth for your plants. When you’ve just slid new pods into their slots, they go to the very top, where they’ll receive the most light. As they begin to grow, they can be moved to the second tier, where they can continue to develop. And finally, when they’re almost ready for harvest, you can move them to the bottom tier, which really gives the plants room to blossom.
“I’m delighted to bring people a new original opportunity to have fresh herbs on your plate every day,” said founder Viktor Pjatnitski of the hydroponic garden. “GrowChef helps you to eat healthier, [and] reduce your shopping list and expenses. After two and a half years of experiments, we’ve figured out how to perfect the hydroponic farm to constantly provide you with ready-to-eat plants.”
You can pre-order the GrowChef now from Kickstarter for $210, with an estimated shipment date of March 2018.
Startup Launches GrowChef – The Ultimate Hydroponic Food Generator
Startup Launches GrowChef – The Ultimate Hydroponic Food Generator
An optimized garden solution at home – harvest delicious fresh greens every single day!
Tallinn, Estonia July 23, 2017 - Now, it’s possible to grow nutritious, tasty and fresh food at home faster and easier than ever, thanks to GrowChef, an easy-to-use hydroponic garden, specially designed to let users harvest one pot of greens per day. GrowChef is designed to be used wherever it best suits its user, be it on a wall, on the floor, on a window sill, or in a closet. With its three-color LED illumination, GrowChef produces enough light on its own so there’s no need for additional daylight. Requiring minimal space, it produces the same harvest as a 3 meter long garden bed. Easy to operate, app-supported, and designed to save users time and money, the GrowChef is the optimal growing solution for anyone who wants to successfully grow greens at home.
GrowChef has 51 pot slots, and can provide users with one pot of greens daily. GrowChef doesn’t have any soil, only nutrient solution and vermiculite, allowing for a twice as fast maturation rate. Once a month a nutrient solution is poured into the slot at the bottom level of the device, and it’s then pumped to fill all three levels automatically every 20 minutes. It then flows back to the lowest level and gets aerated by a non-pressure system, specially developed by GrowChef. The lighting works by a timer which automatically turns the lights on in the morning and off in the evening, but timer settings can be easily changed using the GrowChef app on a smartphone.
GrowChef is designed in three levels, allowing plants to thrive – the grow pots are placed at the top, and stay there until the seeds have germinated and reached 3-5 cm. The pots are moved to the middle level and kept until they reach a height of 10-12 cm, before being moved to the bottom level where they ripen.
The level design and a carefully calculated spacing system ensures sure the plants get the most light when they need it the most, and that the plants have enough space to grow and don’t block light from each other, ensuring a lush and healthy produce.
“I’m delighted to bring people a new original opportunity to have fresh herbs on your plate every day! GrowChef helps you to eat healthier, reduce your shopping list and expenses. After two and a half years of experiments we’ve figured out how to perfect the hydroponic farm to constantly provide you with ready-to-eat plants", says founder Viktor Pjatnitski.
About GrowChef:
Tallinn-based startup GrowChef was founded in 2017 by engineer Viktor Pjatnitski who was 6 years experience in metal structure production. CEO is Liana Guntaisvili, CMO is Jelena Kazakova and Nik Gut is the company’s agronomist.
To bring GrowChef to large scale production, the team has decided to launch the GrowChef on Kickstarter, where it’s available to pre-order until August 30 2017.
Campaign page: https://goo.gl/tim4im
For additional information about GrowChef please visit our website, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Aquaponics at Home: A Modern Farmer Review of Turnkey Aquaponics Systems for All Levels
Back to the Roots, a self proclaimed urban homesteading company based in Oakland, California, offers goods ranging from stoneground corn flakes to organic mushroom kits. They now also offer a cute little tabletop aquaponics kit that contains everything you need to raise sprouts, herbs and a single (inedible) fish (minus the actual fish) in your kitchen window.
Aquaponics at Home: A Modern Farmer Review of Turnkey Aquaponics Systems for All Levels
By Brian Barth on July 18, 2017
Back to the Root's "Water Garden" kit makes a great entry to kitchen aquaponics.
Aquaponics—an environmentally-friendly mash-up of aquaculture and hydroponics—is just beginning to take off at a commercial level. But for homesteaders and hobbyists, it’s more feasible than ever to raise catfish and tomatoes together, whether in your garden, greenhouse, or a sunny window. Poopy fish water provides irrigation and nutrients to the produce, which in turn filter the water for the fish. What could be better?
I once built my own backyard aquaculture system, a semi-disaster which I detailed in a previous post. I wasn’t even attempting the hydroponics part, but just building a self-sustaining system to raise tilapia was a months-long slog of equipment failures and fish kills. I was trying to save money by going the DIY route, but in retrospect I would have been better off with a pre-fab model, one where professional engineers have worked out the kinks in the design.
There weren’t many on the market seven years ago when I started tinkering in my garage with visions of fish tacos dancing in my head. Today, though, there are a plethora. Some are suited for raising nothing more than a couple goldfish and a bouquet of herbs in your kitchen. Others are big enough to supplement a market gardener’s income with sales of hydroponic produce and organically grown fish. Here’s a brief rundown of the options.
Water Garden 2.0 by Back to the Roots, $99
Back to the Roots, a self proclaimed urban homesteading company based in Oakland, California, offers goods ranging from stoneground corn flakes to organic mushroom kits. They now also offer a cute little tabletop aquaponics kit that contains everything you need to raise sprouts, herbs and a single (inedible) fish (minus the actual fish) in your kitchen window. The kit includes a 3-gallon tank, filter, pump, hydroponic growing medium, fertilizer, fish food, and a coupon for a free betta fish, a fancy-looking aquarium fish also known as a Siamese fighting fish. Educational materials are included for classroom use.