Young Ugandans Develop Cheap, Clean, and Fast Way to Dry Food for Low-Income Farmers

Resolution Social Venture Challenge Winner 2017

On a busy market day on the slopes of Mount Elgon in Uganda, a group of Ugandan youth is demonstrating a new method of drying raw foodstuff without sunshine, firewood, or electricity. It is a clean energy drying innovation they call the Sparky Thermal Dehydrator.

One of the youth in the group gets a medium-sized pumpkin, peels off the skin, and slices it into small pieces. He then pulls out a tray from a shelf of a metallic, cupboard-like structure the size of a small hotel room fridge. He places the sliced pumpkin chips on the tray and inserts it back into the wire mesh shelf.

He lights a small burner filled with charcoal briquettes, pushes it under the lower chamber, and closes the door. Heat produced by the stove raises and travels through an air gap between the inner aluminum plate and the outer steel casing until it comes out of the chimney as warm air. The rest of the heat is conducted through the aluminum casing, allowing vegetables to dehydrate. After about two hours, he opens the door and, to everyone’s surprise, the pumpkin slices are totally dehydrated, ready to be stored for up to two years.

Nsubuga Thomas, Isma Kayiza, Lunkuse Betty, and Fredrick Chiluba are Mastercard Foundation Scholars, chosen specifically because of their academic talent, social consciousness, and leadership qualities, pursuing undergraduate studies at Makerere University in Uganda. They developed the idea together with two other youth, Kirumira Edris and Okettayot Lawrence, after seeing how farmers suffered from food shortages due to a lack of proper ways to store food for longer periods.

“We were thinking aloud, asking ourselves, how come the sun dries things but not a charcoal stove? The stove boils food and the sun dries, which meant a stove can as well dry food, and we imagined how this could be done,” said Isma Kayiza.

Through reading and searching on the internet, they found that it was a matter of regulating heat to enable the charcoal stove to dry food.

Traditionally, farmers have used the sun to dry certain foods like maize, beans, cassava, and millet, but have not been able to preserve foods like potatoes, pumpkins, and vegetables. Given that in some parts of the country, there is little sunshine during harvesting season, farmers prefer selling off almost all the harvest to avoid spoilage.

A large Sparky Thermal Dehydrator allows the farmer to dry up to 20 kilograms of food in two hours without worrying about the weather, unlike using the sun, which takes more than three days to dry maize or beans.

“It can work 24/7. The hygiene is improved using this method, because fresh fruits and foods are easily spoiled when dried in the sun, as they attract bacteria,” explained Isma.

“Once we figured out how to develop the dehydrator, we built a model and we discovered that it can really work,” said Isma. “We came up with an idea that fascinated us and that would be useful to help farmers keep more of their crops, but we didn’t have the means to promote Sparky. When the Mastercard Foundation launched the Resolution Social Venture Challenge, we embraced it so much.”

The Sparky Thermal Dehydrator team won the Resolution Social Venture Challenge at the Mastercard Foundation Baobab Summit in Johannesburg in 2017, a competition that rewards compelling leadership and promising social ventures led by youth. These young leaders earned a fellowship that includes seed funding, mentorship, and access to a network of young global change-makers to pursue impactful projects in their communities. A collaboration between the Mastercard Foundation and The Resolution Project, the Resolution Social Venture Challenge provides a pathway to action for socially responsible young leaders who want to create change that matters in their communities.

The Sparky team intends to produce 10 dehydrators, which will be rolled out to different villages in Mbale district in eastern Uganda, the project’s sample area. One machine will be shared among a group of five farmers and they will dry the foods in turns.

“The cost of producing one machine is around 300,000 Ugandan shillings (around US$90), which is not affordable for a smallholder family. But in groups of five, they can contribute to and own one machine,” said Isma.

Using food and farming remains, like potato peelings or maize husks, farmers will be able to produce clean charcoal briquettes. Otherwise, farmers will need to buy just half a kilogram of briquettes to dry five kilograms of food. One kilogram of briquettes sells for 1000 Ugandan shillings at most. In short, if a farmer has $1, she is able to buy around 3.5 kilograms of briquettes.

Already, many farmers have embraced the machine and are ready to start using it. Miriam Aaca, co-founder Okettayot Lawrence’s neighbour, comes from Teso region in eastern Uganda.

“The idea is so motivating,” she excitedly explained. “For us in the village, we have not been drying certain foods because they are perishable, so this is the best option to dry a variety of foods. It is good and I think with time, every household should have one. At times, food gets rotten during the rainy season and we lose a lot. If I have the machine, I will use it and also teach my kids to operate it.”

“I strongly believe this can save many lives,” said Fredrick Chiluba, one of the machine’s inventors. “The problem in Africa is that most people harvest a lot but don’t preserve, so the future is unpredictable and farmers end up lacking food.”

Through local leaders, the group is aiming to attract as many farmers in Mbale District as possible to start using this cheap, clean, and environmentally friendly food dehydrator.

“We want it available to the whole country,” said Isma. “When a product is good and improves lives, it creates a demand for that product. Farmers are paying for their lack of agricultural knowledge with their lives and nutrition, forced to depend on outdated methods in the face of unpredictable weather. But we can change that and make Sparky available to the whole country.”

Fredrick said that this is going to improve the lives and food security of many, not only in Uganda but throughout Africa. “If we can preserve food and teach others how to do the same, we can end hunger.”

Pius Sawa is a freelance journalist based in Kenya. His stories have appeared in Reuters, Farm Radio International, and Inter Press Service. This article originally appeared in The Daily Monitor, Uganda.