Dear the Crypto/Web3 community across the world:

 

About me: 

Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. | twitter: @kaluluanthony

 

What I want to change:

Every household in our region is a farmer, and the biggest challenge that keeps every farmer in our region in chronic poverty is the absence of reliable markets for our produce.

Since 2019, my team has run a project that trains rural farmers in Kamuli & Buyende on white sorghum; provides them with initial inputs, then at harvest, we look for an institutional buyer. See some pics from our work in 2024.

Our goal from 2024 onward, is to expand this work and cover every village in Kamuli & Buyende — an area that comprises 1,123 villages, with over a million people, and 165,000+ households. This is where the grain facility that I am asking you to help us install, will help. Details here.

 

Impact of the grain facility:

• Postharvest handling.

  With our new goal of covering every village in Kamuli & Buyende with white sorghum, this facility will enhance our postharvest handling capacity, enabling us to work with any number of farmers, while linking our produce with many reputable buyers.

•  Engaging institutional buyers.

  Currently, our farmers’ sorghum is bought by Uganda’s biggest brewer Uganda Breweries (UBL). Once this grain facility is in place, it will make many other big buyers to view us as strategic partners (including international relief agencies like the WFP, UNHCR, World Vision, GOAL, Red Cross etc), enabling rural farmers in our region to access high value markets for their produce.

• Diversifying incomes for the rural poor.

  This grain facility will create market linkages not just for sorghum, but also for many other crops like maize, millet, rice, beans, peas etc, which are also bought by many institutional buyers like the UN’s WFP (among others), but which rural farmers in our region have previously never had a mainstream market for. This will enable the rural poor in our region to diversify their incomes and escape ultra poverty.

• Catalyzing self-sustainability.

  Currently, our project provides all our target farmers with free initial inputs (seed, tarpaulins, liquid fertilizers/pesticides, spray pumps etc) only as a hand-up, because many can’t afford them. This facility will change this by giving our target farmers a steady income stream for their produce. This will give these farmers the self-motivation to produce more, and in turn, the ability to use their own incomes to secure the needed inputs, making our work self-sustaining.

• Self-scalability.

  The presence of this facility shall in itself be an assurance to local farmers of the presence of a ready market (including those farmers whom the UCF hasn’t been supporting directly), giving them the self-urge to secure the needed inputs on their own — catalyzing our goal of covering every village in Kamuli/Buyende, and making our overall work self-scaling.

 

Incidentally:

Having this grain facility isn’t simply about convenience in postharvest handling. It is also a market necessity.

In poor countries like ours, most food loss occurs at harvest due to poor postharvest systems. But putting aside the income that is lost in the process, poor postharvest systems are also said to be the leading cause of aflatoxin contamination especially in grains, with 75% of Uganda’s grains said to be contaminated with aflatoxins, as said in the Monitor, a Ugandan local daily.

Aflatoxin contamination in food has been blamed for things like cancer, and there are many cases where Uganda’s grain produce has been rejected, and even destroyed due to aflatoxins. “At high doses, aflatoxins can kill, while at chronic exposure, they impact human health, suppressing immune systems, hindering child growth, and even causing liver cancer. They are also highly toxic to livestock and poultry”, says The Monitor.

For this reason, most savvy buyers, e.g., the WFP (who is currently the biggest buyer of grains in Africa), have strict guidelines for buying grains like maize and sorghum, and require their grain suppliers to have their own established postharvest handling and cleaning facilities.

 

Earlier in 2024:

I made a similar appeal to the global Effective Altruism community, asking them for a hand on our intended grain facility. It just didn’t work. The EA people just let this pass.

Over the years, I have also pleaded with the global antipoverty movement (aka the global development sector), asking them to change the way the world ends global poverty, in particular, by putting the world’s ultra poor (i.e., those of us at the very bottom of the pyramid) in the global south, directly at the helm of ending extreme poverty, and by moving away from top-down approaches.

It all just hasn’t worked. Sadly, supporting bottom-up approaches, i.e., poor-people-led, grassroots approaches to ending global poverty, isn’t what humanity thinks.

It is why I have decided to turn to you for a helping hand.

 

How your crypto will help:

The 16 bitcoin that I am asking you the people of crypto/web3 to help us raise, will be spent on 2 goals:

Goal 1 — installation of the grain facility:  $814,000.

This facility will be installed by British firm Alvan Blanch, at a cost of £339,403 or ~$465,000* (See detailed Quote). Our contact people at Alvan Blanch who put together this Quote are Ivan Erimu, James Shaw and Christabel Blanch.

As indicated in the above quote, however, the £339,403 doesn’t include civil works and sitework, i.e., the actual installation of the facility; all the needed mechanical and electrical installations; wiring materials; crane and forklift hire; personnel lifting equipment and its hire, etc.

The only thing covered in the £339,403 is plant equipment from Alvan Blanch; CFR Mombasa (i.e., transportation of equipment from Alvan Blanch’s premises in the UK to Mombasa Kenya), and an engineer from Alvan Blanch to oversee the installation at our project site in Kamuli (UG).

This money also doesn’t include the building/warehouse that will house the grain facility, and other needed support structures. Most importantly, Alvan Blanch said it will be our responsibility to clear taxes in Mombasa or Kampala (if they quoted us CFR Kampala), and to ferry the plant equipment from Mombasa or Kampala to Kamuli.

With installation, Alvan Blanch has said they can provide their own skilled installation team at a cost of £50,000 – £67,000 (or $68,627 – $92,000). This money also includes all the needed mechanical/electrical materials, but excludes crane and forklift hire; as well as personnel lifting equipment. This brings the total project cost to $557,000.

We have also spoken with one of the leading warehouse construction firms in Kampala, and a steel fabricated warehouse 15m wide, 50m long, and 9m high (the size recommended by Alvan Blanch) will cost Ugx 380m (or $106,442) excluding VAT (18%). Together with VAT, and all the needed groundwork/preparations, the warehouse will cost ~$150,000. This brings the total cost to $707,000.

Lastly, Alvan Blanch has also said that CFR Kampala (where Alvan Blanch itself carries the plant equipment from the UK directly to Kampala, rather than Mombasa), will cost an additional GBP 27,000 or $37,000 — and has said that, with taxes (on plant equipment in Uganda), there is no clear estimate of how much we will pay (or not pay). So, we have simply set aside another $50,000 both for taxes and hire of a crane, forklift & personnel lifting equipment. This is what brings the total project cost to $814,000.

(*GBP to USD conversions are based on local forex rates).

2) Goal 2 — 12% for 100% ADMIN self-sufficiency:

That’s, multiplying production on the UCF’s own 12 acre premises using irrigation and a little bit of permaculture, to ensure that 100% of our administrative overheads are covered by the UCF itself. Needed funding: $101,968.

With a grain facility installed, our new goal is to expand our current white sorghum project to cover every village in Kamuli & Buyende, a region that stretches 3,300sqkm with over a million people and 165,000+ households. The day to day costs of running this work will be huge.

Currently, all the money that we use to run our work comes from small online donations. And as said earlier, this money is mostly spent on inputs (seed, tarpaulins, pesticides, fertilizers, spray pumps etc) that our project provides to all farmers totally free, only as a hand-up.

The UCF is located on 12 acres, and our goal right now is to put every available space on this land to maximum use, using a combination of irrigation and permaculture approaches, to ensure that 100% of our overheads are covered by us, i.e., from the income on our 12 acres. See.

Total cost for both Goal 1 and 2 above: $915,968 (~16btc).

(Note: I created this website in 2024 when the price of bitcoin was $57,000, that is why I set a goal of 16btc. Since the price has now gone up, any extra money raised will be used to support our underlying work with rural poor farmers — providing initial inputs, technical training etc.

 

Plant ownership:

The grain facility that I am asking you to to help us install, is only part of what will ultimately be an integrated plant.

Since the main challenge that keeps every farmer in our region in chronic poverty is the absence of reliable markets for our produce, my ultimate goal — as said in my message to the global effective altruism community (above) — is to develop an INTEGRATED agro-processing plant that shall create market linkages for at least six (6) different types of crops, and thus enable the rural poor in our region to diversify their incomes and escape poverty.

Once installed, our integrated plant will be 80% owned by the rural poor farmers who will be growing the crops that this plant will be working on, with the other 20% owned by the UCF itself — as a way of sustaining our underlying work of training and supporting more rural poor farmers.

Before our integrated plant is installed, however, our grain facility alone, being small, will be owned by the UCF (this will change once our integrated plant is fully developed).

 

Help us find the 16btc now:

(Note: if you are a non-crypto user, you can also contribute dollars here. Similarly, you can also help us raise the needed support by making a wire transfer, or via Employee Workplace Giving where your donation will be matched by your employer. In both cases, please use the info on this page).

BTC  (network: Bitcoin): bc1q0ythhk5t23mukwta3n0wgq4azv8dsm0an0tvyf9sfe07xewxtmgshgz5v3

ETH (network: Ethereum): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

SOL (network: Solana): 9jyeb1PkAgH7k8SojPMCR2uQJzbSckxgkqicbsB66FSt

ASTER (network: BSC):  0x62D503E6128e2F1C3fc44cf2039CB7e7aEA35494

BNB (net: BNB Chain): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

CELO (network: Celo):  0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

USDT (network: TRC20): THYedyCpBTUZJnLRYkPLumW4ruysqHKYMY

XRP (Ripple,  Tag: 6432402): rBuZfn1m4tA6znziHsRp9AyC1M3qg6rgbF

LTC (network: Litecoin): ltc1qyqd9uwh94v88jy67wwfp7tqlkj0cau8awp02qgxqwt5nsypcewwsv7gzwu

POL (network: Polygon): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

USDC (net: Ethereum):  0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

DOGE (net: Dogecoin): A6kVGemtoCSH5KzekuyEMhdfcRgwJsfQwp

UNI (net: Ethereum): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

TRX (network: TRON): THYedyCpBTUZJnLRYkPLumW4ruysqHKYMY

FET (net: Ethereum): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

WLD (net: Ethereum): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

AAVE (net: Ethereum): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

LINK/Chainlink (Ethereum): 0x34f0151233f28c096df831656cd205858cf38077

DOT (network: Polkadot): 12vbtnhoP1nqHD15TsCJBrbeZ7NYMhyjz27zq8pihMeMkvac

AVAX (network: Avalanche X-Chain):                                                            X-avax1ja9q6f8kxfrg3hgjeddvhdz74y3p25dnfa4afy

APT (network: Aptos): 0x52c8b7aa148c747e25a2ba946e43a3bac9a141dde849a896b0e8b7ddcd812ce3

SUI (network:  SUI): 0x6f8dcc1d7d452042f6d6261f4239dc540961c182d156ce247ee3c44d0d1ec6ad

ADA (network Cardano): addr1v8nql666u74y54xl994ng27k3vckhvk20h8mwpwtq3t46rc33uw70

NEAR (network: Near): 56449493e292770e54a5849d6b327da253f158fcf48902ae57fe2bdb3dd5ae27

XLM (network: Stellar,  Tag: 6111232): GDFPCR2JQBBVPA3REJMR6TEPDLICUE5JJHLN7M3QDVLUHE7WBY6S54W2

 

Conclusion:

By affording me the means to install the intended grain facility, you will have enabled me to create an unlikely solution, by an unlikely creator — myself, someone who has battled hunger and ultra-poverty most of my life — in an unlikely part of the world: Uganda’s poorest region.

It is partly the reason I want our intended plant to be 80% owned by the rural poor farmers across our region who will be growing the crops that this plant will working on. The opposite, i.e., running this plant as a traditional capitalist endeavor, means I will have forgotten who I am, & the primary setup of the community to which I belong.

Let’s make crypto a force that can accomplish what other traditional systems have long failed to accomplish.

–

Thank you,

Anthony Kalulu

Founder, UCF.

Email | Website