Growing Power: Exploring Energy Needs in Smallholder Agriculture Sarah Best 2 December 2014

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014Author name
Date
Sarah Best
2 December 2014
RE & Agri Conference, Tunis, 2-4 December 2014
Sarah Best, Senior Researcher, International Institute for Environment and
Development (IIED)
Growing Power: Exploring
Energy Needs in
Smallholder Agriculture

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Presentation Outline
1. What’s the state of play? Approaches of energy and agri-food
sectors
2. What are smallholder energy needs?
3. Learning from experience: Key barriers and lessons from pilot
phase
4. Conclusions and research needs

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
1. State of Play
• ‘Energy-food-water-climate’ nexus & ‘productive uses of energy’
are hot topics – but energy for smallholders is neglected
• RE and smallholder agriculture: growing number of examples, but
still at pilot stage and many barriers to implementation and scale
• Lack of research and sharing on what works and the impacts
• Complex issue with multiple challenges - access, sustainability,
climate, food and water security, jobs, livelihoods, gender etc
We need to re-think the role of energy
in food systems” (FAO, 2012)

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Is this an energy, food, climate or water issue?
Sectors have different approaches
ENERGY
• Traditionally energy technology
and supply-led, though becoming
more demand driven
• Focus on ‘modern energy’, over
human or animal power
• Intervention types:
• Large-scale rural
electrification (e.g. centralised
grid, mini-grid)
• Standalone, off-grid power
and equipment (e.g. solar
irrigation)
AGRI-FOOD
• Focus on whole farm system, farm
as energy producer and user
• Concern for food security,
production, environment, migration
– energy one input among many
• Meets energy gaps by increasing
supply or reducing demand
• Interest in modern and traditional
energy. Intervention types:
• Ag mechanisation (e.g.
tractors, hand-powered tools)
• Sustainable agriculture (e.g.
no-till)

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
2. ‘RE for agriculture’: Who are we talking about?
What and where are the energy needs?
• Agricultural production and on-farm energy use? Subsistence to
large-scale commercial?
• The agri-food value chain?
• Rural communities (farming, non-farming activities)

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Understanding energy needs: a value chain
approach
PRODUCTION (crops,
livestock, fish)
• Land preparation
• Irrigation
• Fertilising
• Crop Protection
• Harvesting,Threshing
• Feeding
• Water Provision
• Shelter
• Catching Fish
PROCESSING, POST-
HARVEST AND
STORAGE
• Drying
• Milling
• Pressing
• Packing
• Storing
DISTRIBUTION AND
RETAIL
• Infrastructure and
transport
• ICTs
• Training
• Selling
ELECTRICITY MECHANICAL POWER THERMAL/
HOUSEHOLD FUELS
Adapted from Practical Action, Poor People’s Energy Outlook, 2012

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Understanding energy needs: a wider, rural
development approach
• Medical centres
• Street lighting
• Schools
• Religious
buildings
• Drinking water
• Sewage pumps
•Food kiosks
•Restaurants, bars
•Barbers, hairdressers
•Internet café
•Carpentry, metal
workshops, repair
•Production
•Processing
•Storage
•Distribution
•Cooking
•Lighting
•Phone charging
•TV & radio
•Space heating and
cooling
•Refrigeration
Household Ag value
chain
Community
services
Rural
business

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Key points on energy needs
• Well-recognised energy access gaps in land preparation, irrigation,
processing and storage
• But energy needs are more wide-ranging and solutions vary across
contexts - e.g. grains vs fresh fruits to address storage/losses
• Value chain analysis can pinpoint bottlenecks and opportunities
• A rural development lens provides a wider understanding of
priorities – especially relevant for electrification projects
• A gender focus is vital – if women had the same access to
productive resources as men they could increase yields on their land
by 20-30% (FAO, 2011)
• “Modern energy solutions” are not always the answer to a deficit
e.g. due to costs, preference for draught animals

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
3. Learning from experience: barriers and
lessons learned
The PILOT PHASE!

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
10 barriers to improved energy access and use
for productive activities in smallholder contexts
• Power, politics and change in
rural development
• Weak demand, customers’
poverty, geography
• Supply-led approach to
electrification, lack of focus on
mechanical and thermal power
• RE technology constraints
• Institutions - lack of joined-
up policies across sectors
(e.g. credit, extension services)
• Finance – users, SMEs
• Capacity gaps at all levels
• Availability and affordability
of input products,
equipment and services
• Lack of market access for
sale of final products
• … AND challenges to
scale-up of sustainable
agriculture and ‘integrated
food-energy systems’
(complexity, workload; trade-
offs; time horizons; access to
technical support)

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Multi-functional Platforms
in West Africa (UNDP)
• Targeted tasks done by
women and children, like
post-harvest processing
• Diesel engine + equipment
• Female management
• In Mali, 450 platforms
installed by end 2004
• Positive results early on – 2-
6 hour time savings/day, girls’
primary school attendance
• But 1/3 platforms not in
operation end 2005,
organisational problems
(Nygard, 2010)

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Solar Market Gardens
in Kalalé, NE Benin
(SELF)
• Solar Electric Light Fund +
partners http://self.org/benin-3/
• Solar water pumping + drip
irrigation, goal of whole village
electrification
• Focus on women’s co-ops
• Results: increase in
household income and
nutritional intake and cost
effective compared to other
technologies (Burney et al,
2010) http://tinyurl.com/kk55fod
• But how to scale up and
achieve economic
sustainability?
Photo credit: SELF

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Learning from other examples of scale
Treadle Pumps, South Asia
2-wheel tractor
US electricity co-ops (1930s)
China domestic biogas

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
4. Conclusions
• We’re not starting from scratch – plenty of experience to learn from
• Smallholders present opportunities for innovation – not yet locked into
high fossil fuel path
• No ‘master plan’ that works for all contexts, but likely success factors:
- Think holistically around user needs
- Involve people more to understand need, raise awareness and demand
- Map “productive use” opportunities and energy bottlenecks in value
chains
- Promote complementary support packages (credit, extension, skills)
- Build capacity and provide business development services
- Facilitate access to efficient and high quality end-use equipment
- Promote joined up approaches between sectors, but also look for
pragmatic interventions e.g. equipment leasing by energy providers
• Finance: Need to shift mindsets and policy to increase public &
donor finance for decentralized, off-grid energy, and sustainable
agriculture

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Possible quandaries and research gaps
1. Power and politics: how does renewable energy fit with
governments wider priorities for food security and rural development?
Where are the political levers and blockers to change?
2. How do we encourage joined-up approaches across sectors and
make complex “systems thinking” (the ‘nexus’) more practical?
3. What are relative roles of the public and private sector? How can
the risks for commercial or semi-commercial investors be addressed?
4. What type of business model innovations could make RE for
agriculture accessible, affordable and workable (cf household energy
sector with mobile phone payments)
5. Learning from the past and the hidden: Are there promising
examples ‘under the radar’ e.g. mini-grids?
6. How do we promote more & better measurement of energy access
impacts for rural communities and across agri-food chain?

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Sarah Best
2 December 2014Author name
Date
Sarah Best
2 December 2014
Contacts: sarah.best@iied.org
‘Growing Power’ paper: http://pubs.iied.org/16562IIED.html
IIED energy page: http://www.iied.org/energy
IIED energy and extractives publications:
http://pubs.iied.org/search.php?c=energy
Thank you