KickStart International is a nonprofit social enterprise founded in Kenya in 1991 with a mission to enable millions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to make a lot more money and climb out of poverty. To succeed, it develops, mass produces, and widely promotes high-quality irrigation tools that enable smallholder farmers to harvest high-value crops year-round—independent of the rains—sell at high prices in the off seasons, and adapt to climate change. KickStart sells and distributes its easy-to-use, affordable, durable tools through sustainable local private-sector supply chains in 17 highest potential SSA countries. And it partners with a multitude of NGOs, United Nations (UN) and government agencies and private-sector players to: innovate new tools and new ways of educating and financing farmers; reach and educate farmers about irrigation; promote and distribute its irrigation tools; and advocate for the policies and funding that will enable widespread uptake of smallholder irrigation across SSA. To date, over 370,000 of KickStart’s irrigation pumps are in use by smallholders who are using them to gain year-round food and income security and lift their families out of poverty. But with only 4 percent of SSA irrigated (versus >40 percent in Asia) and an abundance of renewable surface and shallow ground water, there is a huge unmet need for food in the “hungry seasons,” and a huge potential for rapid scale-up of smallholder irrigation. KickStart is massively partnering and collaborating to scale its impacts and catalyze its goal to “Irrigate Africa.”
More than half the labor force of southeastern Africa lives on subsistence agriculture, making less than $2 per day.
Small-farm entrepreneurs use KickStart’s pumps to increase yields, produce higher value crops, and sell when prices are higher.
KickStart has sold 250,000 pumps, moving families out of poverty at a cost of $65 per person.
KickStart seeks to enable smallholders in SSA to access and use cost-effective irrigation tools, to increase their incomes, gain food security, and adapt to climate change by converting their farms into year-round profitable businesses. Overall to move SSA from 4 percent to more than 20 percent irrigated so it can feed itself, create millions of jobs, and adapt to climate change.
KSI partners with NGOs, UN and government agencies, MFIs, and the private sector to innovate irrigation tools and financing methods, reach and educate smallholders, sell/distribute tools and share evidence to advocate donors, government agencies, NGOs, private players to put in place policies, funding, and subsidies to rapidly scale smallholder irrigation.
Executive Chairman, Wanda Organic
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, KickStart International
Martin J. Fisher is Co-Founder and CEO of KickStart International. Martin holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, and an MSc in Mechanical Engineering and PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, from Stanford University. After graduating in 1985, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the connection between technology and development in Kenya. He stayed for 17 years, establishing and running a large rural water program and the Appropriate Technology Unit at Action Aid, and in 1991, co-founding KickStart-International (originally ApproTEC) with Nick Moon. They started KickStart convinced that there was a better way to address poverty—and pursued a model that would bring together the power of technology with the proven sustainability of the entrepreneurial marketplace and the private sector. Martin currently serves as the CEO of KickStart. Nick retired from executive management in 2011 but continues to serve on its Board of Directors.
Martin has published articles on high-impact development and philanthropy, designed/patented multiple engineering products (for low-cost construction, sanitation, food processing, and irrigation), and has been recognized with awards and honors including being named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation (2003), a 2003 European Hero by TIME Magazine, Engineer of the Year by Design News (2008), and a Stanford Engineering Hero (2016).
KickStart tracks and monitors the number of farmers who adopt its irrigation pumps, the income generated by pump use and downstream impacts on the lives of farmers and their families. To date, KickStart has sold over 370,000 pumps that have enabled over 1.4 million people to lift themselves a major step out of poverty, and enabled the farmers and their employees to generate approximately $190 million annually in new profits and wages. Farmers gain year-round food and income security, invest in additional money-making activities, and increase on-farm incomes by up to 4X. RCTs demonstrate increased incomes, increased influence for women in households, improved mental and physical health, and experienced less marital violence. New incomes increase school attendance and famers self-report greatly improved climate resilience. KickStart has partnered with hundreds of NGOs, UN and government agencies, FSPs/SACOs, and agribusinesses in 17 SSA countries, to distribute its pumps, train farmers, and test innovative financing models (e.g., loans, rent-to-try and buy, paygo, etc.) for pumps. KickStart’s advocacy efforts have helped to advance a significant shift in global attention on farmer-led irrigation in SSA by convening stakeholders, sharing data, and collaborating with partners to advance and inform global dialogue. Interest in smallholder irrigation in SSA is growing and KickStart is positioned as a go-to partner for information and tools.
Irrigation: that’s the key to lifting sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty, according to Martin Fisher. He traveled to the region on a Fulbright scholarship in 1985, and shortly after he…
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