EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Smartel Hydroponics Limited is a technological, research, and development business focused on alleviating the problems of food shortages in Nigeria. Using the latest technologies and handheld internet-enabled devices we are poised to impact the production of food, preservation of the climate ecosystem, and cutting down of selling prices of food items to the consumers.

PROBLEM
What if Africa no longer needed to import most of its food products, agricultural value chains were strengthened, profitable and eco-friendly and indigenous technologies were common place in farming?

In urban African cities, it’s sometimes difficult to get fresh veggies consistently or to know its coming from a safe reliable source leading to mass importation. We need efficient local farmers. But what if we could make agriculture exciting for youth, lower the risk to do it year round regardless of location, with little to no Land no SOIL, cutting out long transportation times with the use of a simple technology?

In Nigeria, the bulk of food (like tomatoes) have to be transported from the northern part to western or Eastern part of the country. The bulk of these foodstuff get spoilt on the way. Nigeria losses 40% of the food bring produced.

SOLUTION
A designed product that can grow fresh food anywhere. A Hydroponic farm system that uses cutting edge technology to improve efficiency.

TECHNOLOGY
A designed product that can grow fresh food everywhere,our system is called the Autosoilless farm, where plants are cultivated indoors without soil(soilless farming). Our system cultivates plants indoors using a nutrient rich solution containing both micro and macro nutrient we developed organically without soil(soilless farming). The solution is circled through the system by our IOT(Internet Of Things )that controls the pump and programs the whole circulation and plant growth through an application we developed. In hydroponics plants are cultivated without soil. Through the use of stackable container farms, we brings fresh organic produce closer to market and entices a new generation of city farmers while improving efficiency and yield for traditional farmers, expanding employment opportunities. Each container is like a high-tech portable greenhouse, using hydroponics and vertical farming technology to grow food directly in urban and rural areas . This minimizes the high costs traditionally associated with the agricultural industry, such as transportation, seasonality, and geographic limitations.

WHY OUR SOLUTION SOLVES THE PROBLEM
Our market survey of restaurants, hotels and supermarkets, 30% stated that they import produce, the rest buy from supermarkets that import or don’t use things they cannot get on the menu but would like to. All stated that foreign exchange is a big issue for them solely because of the difficulty to access. Additionally, through developing a prototype and using it to produce, while also engaging in ground planting, we  were able to compare yield, duration, water use, and input use. We found that we used 10x less water, 10x less land and still had 15x higher yield. In our Autosoilless farm, Wastage and loss is reduced to the barest minimum since plants can be grown anywhere, hence no need of transporting Vegetables like tomato.

Production yield is also attained at maximum since there are no pests or diseases. This Innovation would not only handle food loss and Wastage but will tackle Atleast 4 Sustainable development goals.

JOB CREATION & OUR TARGET OUTCOMES
The goal for us is to employ young urban unemployed youth in agriculture and also bring youth onboard as independent urban farmers who own their own container farm. We want to reduce the barrier of entry into agriculture for them, raise their basic standard of living, dignity in labor and learning capacity through our urban farmers program. We want to also improve how agriculture is done by increasing yield 15 fold, reduce need for land, water and electricity. We provide the land, water, electricity, inputs, mentorship, training. They farm with their containers and we buy everything, providing market.

WHY OUR SOLUTION IS HUMAN-CENTERED
Based on our own data so far, each container is able to repay itself within 6mo-1yr. This means its affordable to an unemployed urban youth without having land as collateral. The security of market will make banks more eager to engage in agricultural lending. Each of our facility will be able to maintain 100 youth for just production, plus 30 youth for logistics. This can be done throughout the city to absorb 1000 youth in Abuja, 2000 in Lagos, 500 in Port Harcourt and even other countries such as Ghana, Kenya, etc.

BENEFICIARIES/PRIMARY USERS

1. Small & medium Commercial farmers
2. large industrial farmers
3. Urban Farmers
4. Hobby home gardeners
5. Youth and women.