AgricultureLack of access to energy locks people into poverty and malnutrition. In Ethiopia, for example, an estimated 40% of crops are lost after harvest because they spoil without access to refrigeration.
Little Sun pilots new approaches using solar technology for agriculture. Our goal is to increase farmers’ income by increasing yields and access to markets, as well as helping communities meet the nutritional and livelihood needs of growing populations.
Zambia
Little Sun has focused all PURE (productive use of renewable energy) activity in Zambia, where we have spent the past years building a team based in Lusaka, Mumbwa, and Chibombo. Headed by CEO Muyunda Munyinda, the team offers solar home systems for private customers in the Mumbwa area, and runs the first Little Sun Community Energy Hub in the Chibombo region. Our focus is on building the offerings of the Community Energy Hub at multiple locations in the coming years.
Working closely with farmer groups, cooperatives, the regional and national government, as well as the private and NGO sector, we analyzed agricultural value chains to find a suitable offering that Little Sun can make to the benefit of rural smallholder farmers.
The dairy value chain stood out, with a disconnect between the many cows held by smallholder farmers and the formal market, where dairy companies are looking to buy milk to replace milk imports.
Since April 2024, we are operating our first Community Energy Hub, which offers 38 farmers the opportunity to deliver their milk on a daily basis for sale to the formal market. Our team tests the milk, cools it in specialized solar-powered milk chillers, and sells it to an offtaker every day, thereby linking the farmers to the formal market.
Projected Impact
We measure our impact by ZMW (Zambian Kwacha) paid out to farmers for sold milk, and by jobs created in rural Zambia. USD 1 of grant funding = USD 1 annual income for farmers and employees. The use of solar energy and local milk reduces CO2 emissions, and the service impacts food security, health, education, and opportunity building.
Impact per Hub
Economy: Annual farmer income from 1 hub: $90.229 USD (av. $2.374 USD), $1 grant = $1 per year local rural income; Long-term impact through job creation and income generation in rural Zambia for 38 farmers and 4 hub employees
Environment: 9.88 tonnes of CO2 emissions savings per hub per year by using renewable energy instead of diesel generators; preventing food loss with off-grid power; locally sourced milk to avoid imported milk & associated emissions
Communities: Developing skills for trading and economic diversification; trainings for staff, farmers, and families; new market linkage for local communities to dairy industry
Little Sun Community Energy Hubs directly drive SDGs 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13 and impact SDGs 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, and 12.
Beyond the current work in Zamiba, Little Sun has a 12 year history of delivering access to solar energy by providing our pico solar products, as well as by electrifying health centers and schools and piloting solar powered productive use applications.
We have worked extensively in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe since 2012. We have partnered with business, civil society, NGOs, and many likeminded individuals. We have set up our own teams and worked with great partners.
A special thank you goes out to our very close partners in Ethiopia (Solar Development PLC) and Senegal (JLF Enterprise), where we have focussed our work previously alongside the development of the project in Zambia.
See our work history in our stories.
