The Power of Economic Freedom

The primary impact of KickStart’s MoneyMaker irrigation tools is right in the name: improving income. We believe that the number one need of anyone living in poverty is a way to make more money. By making smallholder farming more productive, more profitable, more climate resilient, and year-round through irrigation, KickStart’s tools enable households to quickly increase their income and tackle poverty on their own terms. But this newfound economic freedom can yield a lot of other exciting benefits, serving to improve the health and wellness of an entire household, and even help to mend family systems.

In 2023, newly published results from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) showed that access to KickStart’s MoneyMaker Max Pumps, combined with KickStart’s agropreneurship training, significantly reduced stunting in children in families with pumps—and led to major improvements in the mental health and well-being of households. Run by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical School, the Shamba Maisha Research Project, “Farming Life” in Swahili, studies the impacts of agricultural livelihood interventions via KickStart’s irriga­tion pumps on the mental and physical health of HIV-positive individuals and their families in Western Kenya. Recent results revealed remarkable effects across a variety of household wellbeing markers, uncovering the power of improved income and nutritional security to support those living with HIV, and preventing its spread.

Mental Health: Study results showed a major reduction in depression symp­toms among the intervention group (36%), as well as improved household food security and income, physical activity, and productive labor, self-confi­dence, and contribution to one’s community.

Risk Reduction: Over 50% of HIV cases globally are among adolescents, most affecting girls, and especially those living in poverty. Teenage girls in families with irrigation pumps saw a 20% reduction in depression and anxiety, a 30% reduction in transactional sex and gender-based violence, and overall greater sexual agency and improved focus in school. These findings help delineate the important link between poverty re­duction, food security, and HIV prevention in high-risk groups.

Childhood Stunting & Food Security: In households with a KickStart pump, children between 6 and 24 months grew an extra 1.18 cm in height over two years. In addition, adolescent girls showed higher body mass indexes (BMIs), and household food insecurity overall was reduced by 45%.

Irrigating the Continent: Unveiling KickStart's Breakthrough Starter Pump

“ A tree does not move unless there is wind.”

 – Nigerian Proverb.

Since 1991, KickStart has been designing and developing irrigation technologies to reach Africa’s farmers at scale—working relentlessly to improve durability, effectiveness, and affordability. By 2016, we had moved over a million people out of poverty, but this was just a drop in the bucket. We needed to find a way to reach many more—our programs team put KickStart’s engineers to a challenge: build a pump that can sell for half the cost of our least expensive pump.

It was no simple feat. Already working on the smallest cost margins, the team would have to solve the same technological problem with half the materials. After years of discarded prototypes, failed tests, manufacturing errors, and supply chain interruptions, KickStart was ready to introduce this game-changing product to the world – during a global pandemic – finally launching the Starter Pump to the Kenyan market in a virtual event in 2021.

In 2023, we shifted our horizons to the rest of the continent. In a whirlwind continental tour, KickStart’s teams officially launched the Starter Pump to partners, governments, farmers, media, key stakeholders, and private sector players in Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria, and Rwanda. The enthusiasm and reception from these launches have been inspiring as we work to bring about the transformational change possible when the right technology is put in the hands of those who need it the most.

Breaking down old cost barriers catalyzes new points of access - novel financing models, farmer mobilization, partner subsidies, and public-private partnerships—critical for bringing irrigation to scale. We know that the journey toward an Irrigated Africa requires bold vision, unwavering dedication, and cutting-edge technology, and the Starter Pump is a big part of KickStart’s ambitions for growth. By innovating technologies like the Starter Pump, we’re bridging affordability and accessibility to include the least resourced and hardest-to-reach populations—quenching the thirst of arid lands and nurturing the seeds of progress, growth, and resilience.

Meet Alice

For years, Alice Odhiambo and her husband lived in Homabay, a small town on the coast of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya—where they sold fish at the local market. Alice’s husband was diagnosed with cancer, and they were forced to move closer to family, but without a consistent livelihood, they faced worsening food and income insecurity. When Alice’s husband passed away, she had to find a new way to survive.

She started looking for ways to make money off her small plot of land—she began growing and selling vegetables, using a borehole to fetch buckets of water to irrigate her plot. The work was laborious, and the water level was starting to decline. Like many, she didn’t have the finances to expand her enterprise.

She joined Siaya Seed Savings and Credit Cooperative, a community-based financial organization that provides saving and credit services to its members through collective ownership and training on financial literacy and management. Finally, Alice discovered an irrigation solution at a farmer field day training hosted by KickStart through her SACCO. She was convinced to buy a MoneyMaker Starter Pump, which she purchased with 1,000 ksh ($10) down and a six-month loan from Siaya Seed SACCO. Alice started irrigating and dug a small water catchment with new profits to collect rainwater to supplement the borehole. With the Starter Pump, she built a reliable livelihood by growing traditional vegetables (sukuma, managu, etc.) and gained local popularity and credibility as a farmer for her high-quality off-season crops—securing a contract to supply vegetables at the VIP hotel in Ugunja town.

While Alice's children are grown up, she has adopted three orphaned relatives under her care and is optimistic about the future. She has repaid her loan and often lends out her Starter Pump to family and neighbors, free of charge. She knows firsthand how life’s unexpected blows and financial barriers can set back one’s aspirations and believes everyone should have the opportunity to thrive. Alice finds great joy in caring for the three children in her care and has gained enormous esteem as a female leader, changing the status quo for women and other widows in her community.

Alice’s story is inspiring and an apt example of how KickStart works to get its tools into the hands of rural entrepreneurs—representing one of the over 400,000 irrigation pumps distributed across Africa. KickStart partners with hundreds of partners like Siaya Seed SACCO, who have networks of farmers and trusted relationships with community members. From there, KickStart works on the education piece by introducing and training farmers on KickStart’s pumps, irrigation, and its benefits, many of whom havenever practiced irrigation before. Through partnerships, KickStart works to create linkages for farmers without credit options to farmer-friendly loans with other financing services, government subsidies, and support services—bringing together the necessary collaborators to enable millions more farmers—like Alice—to irrigate, establish food security, and move out of poverty.