The story of Rigu with a happy end

Data / date: 13/02/18 Sem comentarios / No Comments

Safi Organics

There was once a boy named Rigu who lived in Kenya, a country that has the lowest crop yield in the world. The region depends on the rain and suffers from the droughts. There is also increasing temperatures caused by climate change and climate instability.

Rigu suffered from this situation in his cornfield he began shortly after finishing university. One day in 2014, Rigu went on a trip to the rice-trading hub in Mwea and had an idea. In front of the rice processor, there were piles of chaff from the bark that is separated from the beans during harvesting.

Many of the piles were burned and the process releases toxic pollutants! Rigu saw in this situation an opportunity to profit from the waste and turn it into something economically viable.

It was then that Rigu invented Safi Sarvi, a compound that turns the straw into an organic conditioner. He buys rice husks, corn husks, and other agricultural wastes from a local rice processor network for a low price. Then he burns the residues slowly and adds a mixture of limestone and other vegetable ingredients to create the fertilizer. It sells back to the local farmers the product and whoever uses the product is satisfied because they have seen their farm incomes increase by 30% and up to 50%.

Rigu’s Safi Sarvi has the advantage to retain more water and nutrients over time compared to traditional fertilizers and the limestone prevents soil acidification. Rigu is very happy because according to him “Every acre of land that uses the Safi Sarvi product stops releasing 1.7 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.”

Today Rigu no longer has the corn farm and owns a very lucrative business that contributes to preserving the environment. He was the winner of the Total Startupper of the Year award with the participation of 34 African countries and ranked second in the MIT Innovation Award for Food and Agribusiness.