FARM WITH SOLARNOW Final Report 15-11-2018 to 15-11-2022

Farm with SolarNow (FASO) is a 4-year project that has been implemented by SolarNow under the Netherlands Embassy Food Security Cluster Program. The project officially started on 15 November 2018 as a 2-year project, and has been extended for an additional 2 years until 15 November 2022. Through an end-user contribution program, SolarNow primed the market for agricultural equipment by providing 1,026 farmers with access to modern agricultural productive technologies over the 4 year project period, contributing to enhanced production and farmer’s income. The subsidy, in combination with the in-house credit facilities, investment in agri-marketing and in-house capacity building, improved farmer’s accessibility to SolarNow’s agricultural product range, which otherwise would have been expensive for subsistent and emergent farmers. The program channeled the contribution by the Netherlands Embassy to farmers, in the form of an end-user subsidy on SolarNow’s agricultural product range. Thanks to the program, SolarNow has developed an agricultural product range, has launched marketing campaigns for awareness creation, and has provided pay plan facilities to clients. The investment in agri-product development, capacity building and marketing has been fully covered by SolarNow up till the end of July 2021, through third party funding from MasterCard Foundation ‘Fund for Rural Prosperity’. From July 2021 onwards, project expenditures to support promotion, awareness creation and coordination of field activities were included in the FASO project budget.