Improving harvest in Benin!
Give a boost to Beninese agriculture! Your help is crucial!
Hi everyone!
We are Laura, Yoël, Jan Douwe and Niels and are following the minor International Entrepreneurship and Development at TU Delft. Our goal is to find an entrepreneurial solution together with students at Lycée Technique Agricole de Djougou (LTA Djougou) to improve harvest in agriculture in Benin.
What does LTA Djougou do?
Established in 2013 to train young people for the agricultural sector, LTA Djougou currently has access to 100 hectares of land with an extension of 1,000 hectares. Six tracks are offered: horticulture, animal husbandry, food and food technology, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries and rural management.
Successful students mainly work with non-profit organisations or on farms, but hardly ever become entrepreneurs. This is problematic because the agricultural sector needs more Beninese businesses and young workers.
What will we do?
Our goal has changed! First, our plan was to produce local organic manure and conduct a bootcamp on entrepreneurship. After talking to the school management during our first visit, we found that the demand is more about the lack of water and irrigation. Therefore, we adjusted our activities and will do the following: We will focus on two major tasks.
We are conducting a workshop on rainwater harvesting in the rainy season so that it can be used in the dry season. Here, we walk students through the 'Design Thinking Cycle' to introduce them to designing a product.
The second workshop is about entrepreneurship and 'farming as a business' where we will look with the students at: How do you set up a business? How do you make a budget? How does marketing work? And we will work with the students to set up a network to stay in good contact with all relevant companies and farmers in the area.
With the input from the workshop on rainwater, we will see if we can build such a system so that rainwater can be utilised for agriculture. All the money raised will go towards this. We will be happy to keep you updated on developments.
We are also discussing whether we can construct a demo plot with an irrigation system at the school. To realise this, we also need the connection between solar panels and the groundwater pump. For this, we are trying to arrange external funding, so that the crowdfunding money only goes to local products and strengthens the local econonomy and is not used to finance a supplier outside Africa.
How can you help us?
Our goal is to raise 2,500 euros. This will allow us to start realising rainwater harvesting during the rainy season. Some major cost items will be:
- PVC pipes for collecting water roofs
- Large water tank
- Construction of water basin
- Workshop materials
- Travel costs to the school
What will it bring you?
We would like to include you in our project in Benin. Therefore, we offer you the following opportunities if you support our project!
10€ -> Little Friend: Update - Get updates on our project. You will receive everything about our project including photos.
25€ -> Bronze Friend: Postcard from Benin
50€ -> Silver Friend: Growth paper with logo
100€ -> Gold friend: T-shirt + personalised video
250€ -> Diamond Friend: Your company logo on our T-shirt + teaching materials
For questions about our project, please send an email to teamdjougou@gmail.com.
