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The future of greenhouses for Bondo

Three months will be too short to finish the entire project. That’s why after we leave other groups of students will come to continue our work, until the project is sustainable. A plan will be made with all the things that need to be managed in the next couple of years, so the next students will know what to do next.

greenhouse at JOOUST

In the next years it needs to become clear who will be the right candidate to be responsible for the project. At the moment professor Andika and a couple of his students seem to be a good solution for this matter. But maybe this appears to be wrong and a local person who has no connections with the University needs to be considered. The right solution needs to be further investigated in Kenya.

When the project on the University succeeds, the first farmers will have their own greenhouse in six years from now. As the lectures taught us, ‘more startups fail from lack of customers than from a failure of product development,’ (Steven Blank) we decided to come up with an idea to assure the farmers of costumers. This future business model consists of the idea to let the farmers cooperate after they have all bought their own greenhouses. A truck must be realized to drive their yield to Kisumu, the nearest town, where the yield can be sold to restaurants and supermarkets. In this way the farmers are assured of constant revenue and they can share their transport costs. Of course to realize all this some interference of the TU Delft student is required. The students need to make sure the supermarkets and restaurants will do business with the farmers, which will be attractive since the products are of higher quality and the supply will be constant. Another market will be the JOOUST University, with more than 5000 students, they are willing to buy the farmers’ yield. When the farmers have the supermarkets and the restaurants or the University depending on them, they will be more motivated to actually continue greenhouse farming. Also it will be more attractive for the farmers to start greenhouse farming in the first place.