Funding for Food & Greenhouse on your Phone

Introduction

The Funding for Food campaign is starting a Hydroponic farm called Hydro Farming in the Southern part of Africa which will supply food, create job opportunities and help people with disabilities to provide for their families.

This project also involves the development of a mobile application and installing infrastructure to enable remote monitoring for greenhouses. This enables you to become part of the project no matter where you are.

What's in it for you?

With the remote monitoring capabilities you will be able to take part in this project by managing or monitoring either part of a greenhouse or your own separate greenhouse. This will include profit sharing of the crops produced by your greenhouse. All the setup and physical labor will be done for you and you will be supplied with all relevant stats regarding your greenhouse. Live video footage will be available to you through the mobile application and you can see your crops grow from the comfort of your home.

How will we achieve this?

The App

We are in collaboration with a mobile app development company called Enginosoft. They have highly skilled engineers ready to start with this project as soon as the funding are available. Only a small portion of the funds raised will go towards the development of the application to cover costs. The application is Enginosoft's contribution towards the bigger project - accelerating the uptake of hydroponic farming methods in Africa.

The Farm

The farm will be a modern, technology driven farm following best practices to ensure the most efficient and healthiest ways to grow a wide range of vegetables and herbs. Progress has been made on planning to realize this. Continuous research and evaluation will be done in order to keep progress on the right track. The figure below gives a brief overview of the current status of the project:

Vacant land has been identified which will be ideal for construction of large scale greenhouses. This allows for modular deployment of different sized greenhouses as required. Hydroponic farming requires much less water than traditional farming. The identified land is already equipped with a strong bore hole, sufficient for the needs of the farm.

To start off, the crops will be sold at local farmers markets, but due to the high quality products that this type of farming can produce, restaurants and supermarkets will be approached as well. Ultimately the long term goal is to export high quality produce as a well established brand.

To minimize initial risks, crops with the highest success rate will be selected first, but as the project progress we plan on growing a large variety of vegetables and herbs. Backers that qualify for the remote monitoring app will also have an input as to which crops they would like to grow in their greenhouses.

Various local suppliers have been identified for the construction of the greenhouses and supply training to employees.

For more information on the campaign please visit our website at http://hydrofarming.co.za or to get in touch e-mail me at [email protected]