Improving Communities and Women’s Lives with Solar Mills in Nigeria
In Nigeria, see how portable, solar-powered grain mills are transforming lives and improving food security.
Feeding a community or household can be time-consuming and even back-breaking work, especially for the women in sub-Saharan Africa who spend a collective 40 billion hours each year on milling.1 Although diesel-powered mills have largely replaced time-consuming manual grinding and pounding, diesel mills remain difficult to operate, expensive, unreliable, and polluting. They are also often located far from users’ farms, so incur additional transport costs.
Solar mills save time, money, and the environment
Unlike their diesel counterparts, solar mills are often portable, easy to use, and environmentally friendly. For women and children who often perform most of the milling work in off-grid regions of Africa, these agro-processing machines can help save valuable time that they can then devote to other pursuits.
According to Matt Carr, CEO of Agsol, a solar-powered agro-processing company based in Kenya, “Solar milling has the potential to be one of the greatest liberators of off-grid women’s time”.2
Boosting incomes and productivity
Coupled with their impact on gender equity and empowerment, solar mills can boost the income and quality of life of smallholder farmers by lowering operating costs, increasing farm productivity, and enhancing food security. By completely eliminating the need for pollutive diesel fuels, solar mills are also a boon for environmental and human health.
Enhancing food security in Nigeria
Farm Warehouse is an agricultural technology distributor that offers portable, solar-powered mills to smallholder farmers in Nigeria. Through the support of CLASP’s Productive Use Financing Facility – an innovative financing program that delivers support to companies through capacity-building grants, subsidies, and business support – Farm Warehouse has been able to deliver life-changing technologies into the hands of those who need them.
Farm Warehouse customers affirm the benefits of these grain mills:
“Any type of flour that you want to produce, this machine can produce it. That is why we need this machine more, so we can have more money to help ourselves and have enough food to give out for people that need it.”
Okwei Sunday Ibor, Farm Warehouse client
Not only do these mills increase food production, they also significantly decrease food wastage. According to Kuma Mede, CEO of Farm Warehouse, before the introduction of these appliances, farmers were losing roughly 30% of their harvest; with Farm Warehouse’s portable, solar mill, farmers are able to significantly reduce wastage and reap more from their harvest.
For close to a decade, CLASP has been working to improve access to efficient appliances that work in off-grid or weak-grid areas. These productive-use appliances (PUAs), such as solar-powered refrigerators, solar water pumps, and solar milling machines are technologies that have a direct, transformative impact on local communities, small businesses, and people’s livelihoods. As these appliances are often powered by renewable energy, they have far lower running costs for consumers, and they reduce harm to the environment and the climate.
The Facility helps strengthen the role of appliance suppliers and distributors by providing capacity-building grants to companies like Farm Warehouse. In addition to business support, CLASP improves appliance performance testing to verify appliance quality, ensuring Farm Warehouse consumers receive reliable information about the efficiency and quality of the products on sale.
Improving Communities and Women's Lives with Solar Mills in Nigeria
About the Productive Use Financing Facility
CLASP’s Productive Use Financing Facility, is supported by The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP). It has provided financing to 24 companies in six countries, to enable the distribution of over 13,000 productive-use appliances, directly impacting more than 58,000 households.
0. Efficiency for Access: “Solar Milling: Exploring Market Requirements to Close the Commercial Viability Gap” (January 2020) https://efficiencyforaccess.org/wp-content/uploads/SolarMilling_Market-Requirements.pdf.
1. Efficiency for Access Coalition: “Solar Milling: Exploring Market Requirements to Close the Commercial Viability Gap” (January 2020), https://efficiencyforaccess.org/publications/solar-milling-exploring-market-requirements-to-close-the-commercial-viability-gap/?_gl=1*1wc2jau*_gcl_au*NjI0MDk1ODI5LjE3MTYzNzg1NjQ.*_ga*MTk0MDQ1NjQ5LjE3MTYzNzg1NjA.*_ga_RSE4P06FCR*MTcyMDQ0MjU0Mi4xMDIuMS4xNzIwNDQzODk3LjAuMC4w.
