‘KickStart’ing Business For African Farmers

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August 11, 2010 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

A non-profit is hoping to help fight poverty in Africa by helping the farmers grow better crops reports voanews.com.

Through a program called KickStart, he sells, rather then gives, small pumps to poor farmers in an effort to encourage entrepreneurship.

This water pump — called the Super Money Maker — is designed to make a big difference in the lives of rural Africans.

Martin Fisher — a co-founder of the non-profit KickStart — demonstrates the technology on the rooftop of his San Francisco office. “It’s cheap, it’s extremely robust, it won’t break down, it’s very lightweight,” he says, “You can carry it to the field.”

KickStart is part of a growing trend in the development community towards social entrepreneurship. KickStart sells its pumps to poor rural farmers, with the promise that they can make money with them. For a small farmer, replacing a bucket with a pump can lead to cultivating a wider variety of crops and creating work for family and neighbors.

And in sub-Saharan Africa, where only four percent of the land is irrigated, buying a small pump can make a big difference. Fisher says his experiences in Africa years ago showed him many people value the things they pay for more than the things they’re given.

“I went over to Africa as a socialist, and after about five or six years of hitting my head against the wall, became a small “c” capitalist,” Fisher said