Our commitment
Our commitment
We commit to partnering with local communities in Africa by generating income, developing perspectives and regaining hope.
Farming should be worthwhile and enjoyable for smallholders, so that:
- Growing families can obtain their necessary livelihoods.
- Children can receive proper education
- Medical care can be provided.
- Wells can be drilled to guarantee healthy drinking water.
- Rainwater, cisterns, or collection tanks can be built.
- Dry periods can, at least, be bridged.
- Growing families can obtain their necessary livelihoods.
- Children can receive proper education
- Medical care can be provided.
- Wells can be drilled to guarantee healthy drinking water.
- Rainwater, cisterns, or collection tanks can be built.
- Dry periods can, at least, be bridged.
We commit to partnering with local communities in Africa by generating income, developing perspectives and regaining hope.
Farming should be worthwhile and enjoyable for smallholders, so that:
How do we do our job?
Import
We buy and import machines from the Far East. Those machines include but are not limited to: two-wheel tractors, seed drills, sprayers, and compost shredders. We purchase these for a fraction of European prices. In the future, these devices will be taken over by companies in the respective countries themselves. In Ghana, for example, a Non-Profit Organization Agimpex Ghana was founded for this purpose.
Assembly, Inspection and Documentation
These respective prototypes are assembled, inspected, and documented in Schorndorf, Germany. The documentation includes written instructions, videos, and Powerpoint slides.
Export
We export the machines to the respective developing countries. There, they are taken over by a partner company, which controls the import processing and the training for assembly and application.
Why do we trade with machines from the Far East?
We trade with the far east so that agricultural output prices balance the machinery costs.
This has always been the case in Europe and North America during technical development.
Machines were manufactured and sold at the respective regional wages for farmers with their regional producer prices.
Although this method was not always easy, it allowed for an increasingly growing population worldwide to be fed.
(from 1950 to 2023 the population grew by 5.3 billion).
We owe this success to the farmers.!
Unfortunately, many countries in Africa were left behind due to limited education and religious traditions, which rejected or even forbade technical change.
Innumerable development projects have tried to improve living conditions and output with our western technology. Many of these projects have failed, which has caused great frustration to those concerned.
What are the causes behind these failed projects?
The causes are complex, but one thing is clear:
most rural farmers in countries like Ghana and Malawi cannot afford the technology produced and marketed in the western world.
One solution to this problem is to donate used machinery.
However, because these machines are old, it is very difficult to find spare parts and to maintain them. This discourages farmers even more.
Machines from the Far East are produced at wages similar to ours in 1950. On the other hand, they are equipped with relatively modern technology and materials that guarantee adequate productivity!
This is immediately visible and motivating!
But even the cheapest technology must be affordable!
Western farmers always had (and still have) the privilege of getting money from their bank because they had (and still have) the most valuable collateral, namely land! This does not usually work for the poorest, as there are no land registers to provide the necessary and enforceable collateral for the banks. Outside help is therefore needed to complete an investment cycle!
Instructions for repairs are available on youtube!
1.Tilling
We help by providing practical machines at a fair price.
These machines are simple enough to be operated operated and repaired by anyone.
We want to make "smartfarming" accessible to small-business farmers.
The machine comes with a few pre-assembled parts, which allows the farmer to assemble it almost independently.
The tiller on the single-axle harvester was used to shred the bush and mix it into the soil.
The rest is done by soil organisms as they draw out the nutrients.
Furthermore, the water balance is improved. This means that even a 2-week drought cannot destroy a crop!
Next step: mechanized sowing!
With these simple machines India went from being a country struggling with famine to the second largest wheat producer in the world!
In Schorndorf we have started to develop a „root irrigation device: “ - roto root supply -
This way water will be provided only where it is needed for the crops.
The distributor is equipped with injectors that pierce about 3-5 cm into the tilled soil. The distributor delivers the water across the row of plants directly to the roots. It is supposed to save 50-70% of water.
Second harvest:
The aim of this kind of irrigation is to allow for an earlier start to sowing. This then allows for a second cycle of sowing and harvesting.
Following graphic shows:
corn-growth in dependency of its water consumtion. Irrigation is needed in
germination-(Saataufgang) und end(Black Layer) of the growth.
Artificial fertilizer can be replaced by homemade compost, improving soils. Better yields need to be preserved and need better marketing. This requires better transport possibilities. In the future, we also want to deal with the production and marketing of fertilizer, which has become extremely expensive worldwide due to the Ukrainian war - not necessarily affordable for countries worldwide.