<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/nimble-electric-trucks-are-supercharging-african-trade/>
"Esperance Dushakimana looks at her field of potato in Musanze district in
North Rwanda. “It is hard,” she says. “We till the land, sow the seeds, reap
the harvest and then watch helplessly while at least a fifth of it perishes
before it reaches the market.” Barely 30 miles away in Rubavu, mushroom farmer
Vincent Ngamije is forced to sell his harvest on the cheap across the border in
Congo, instead of in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, where he can get a better price.
“The market in DRC is barely 40 minutes away, and in contrast, my mushrooms can
reach Kigali only after spending five hours in a warm truck,” he says. “Barely
40 percent will survive.”
In Rwanda’s agrarian, undulating landscape, farmers pedaling up or madly
careening down hills, on bicycles piled four feet high with bananas, potatoes
and other produce, are a common sight. Like Dushakimana and Ngamije, most
farmers here either watch their harvest spoil, or grow only as much as they can
get to market. The issue is global: About 25 to 30 percent of food produced
worldwide is wasted. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates
that every year, about USD $400 billion worth of food is lost before it ever
reaches the market. But in Rwanda, where over 4.8 million people (41 percent of
the population) are undernourished and approximately one-fifth of the
population is food insecure, food waste seems even more wasteful.
Better logistics is an obvious solution, but it is not as simple as that.
Long-haul diesel trucks have a massive carbon footprint; the US Environmental
Protection Agency estimates that in 2022 more than three percent of all carbon
dioxide (CO₂) emissions came from them.
“Traditional car manufacturers have failed to produce vehicles that suit a
third of the world’s population, predominantly those in the Global South,” says
Simon Davis. He is the founder and CEO of the UK-based Ox Delivers, which has
developed, according to the company website, “the world’s first
purpose-designed electric truck” for Africa. It was launched in Rwanda in 2021
and is almost 10 times cheaper to run compared to existing alternatives. And it
offers farmers the cost-effective choice of renting the space they need for as
little as a dollar depending on weight and distance, instead of the entire
truck (for about $500), to transport their agricultural produce from farm to
market. Refrigeration capacity can be added to all these trucks (in fact “cold”
trucks service Rwanda’s dairy farmers in Kivu, Western Rwanda) and the company
has also developed a mountable cool box for non-refrigerated trucks."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
