The KickStart Model
Our three pillar strategy for scale
KickStart takes a three-pronged approach to promote small-scale irrigation across SSA, targeting new innovations, local distribution, and global advocacy.
INNOVATE
Develop new high-impact irrigation solutions for small-scale farmers.
DISTRIBUTE
Enable millions of small-scale farmers to access irrigation technologies to build lasting food and income security.
ADVOCATE
Catalyze global support for system changes to “Irrigate Africa”.
KickStart path to scale
In order to scale smallholder irrigation across Sub-Saharan Africa, KickStart works to build the right products, market infrastructure, and policies that enable millions more to create sustainable year-round livelihoods. To do this, we work with partners across our three key strategies.
In detail
Innovations
KickStart designs and develops our irrigation tools to be income-generating “appropriate technologies”, following core design principles: people-centered, small-scale, affordable, energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable. KickStart relentlessly pushes to improve our technologies, in order to unlock greater efficiencies in cost, utility, ease-of-use and durability.
Mass production
KickStart’s products are mass-manufactured to the highest standards and are designed for high density packing to reduce shipping costs. KickStart’s Supply Chain Team helps to ensure efficient shipping and importation logistics to buyers in our 17 priority countries.
Profitable supply chain
KickStart recruits, supports, and strengthens commercial value chain partners to ensure that the solutions are conveniently and sustainably available to the people who need them. This profitable local private-sector supply chain ensures long-term and widespread access. KickStart’s pumps are available at over 270 agro-dealers across the continent, creating availability to remote villages and towns.
Partnerships
KickStart works with local and regional partners to incorporate irrigation into their core programs and generate awareness, demand, and access across their large networks of farmers. This highly leveraged partnership-based outreach model drives pump distribution at scale, while contributing to the impact and development goals of KickStart’s partners.
Supporting farmer success
KickStart provides training and outreach services to help famers to adopt irrigation, ensure their success, and support them on their impact journey. We offer agropreneurship training to build high-impact business skills, maximize profits, and adopt sustainable and regenerative farming practices. And we work to link farmers to; local markets, financing to purchase our technologies; and complementary products and services.
Advocating for systems change
KickStart works to catalyze system changes supporting the widescale irrigation uptake across SSA. We partner to prove scale and carefully measure the impacts to build a body of evidence to support the adoption of irrigation. We share and advocate to key stakeholders to put in place the policies, investments and subsidies that will enable millions more farmers to learn about and adopt irrigation.
See the impacts of our proven model
Our model is built to enable as many farmers as possible to start irrigating – and unleash the transformative impacts that enable families to thrive.