High-Yield Farming
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March 2023 - We are extremely proud to announce that NjordFrey won two awards at the recent MassChallenge Resolve Summit event held in Boston, USA. NjordFrey won the award for 'Food Sustainability' and 'Social Impact'. Thank you to all the team at MassChallenge and attendees who made it a great event. It also demonstrates clear support for our solution and the smallholder farmers we are working with.

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February 2023 - Voting for the Milken-Motsepe People’s Choice bonus prize is NOW OPEN. As one of the 25 competition finalists please help us by clicking on our logo in the link http://bit.ly/3Y0JVM8 to vote for NjordFrey.
This will help us win a cash prize that will go directly towards impacting Rwandan smallholder farmers!

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December 2022 - We are expanding! We began civil works on site to triple our crop growbed capacity and undertook upgrade works on our filtration system to increase nutrient breakdown and oxygenation of the water supply. We look to complete works and start increased production in Q1 of 2023.

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November 2022 - As part of our participation in the Milken Motsepe Field Study, we welcomed Afrilabs to our site for a second follow up visit. Traditional bean planting season occurs in Oct/Nov time and so we were also able to compare against this control group.

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August 2022 - As part of our participation in the Milken Motsepe Field Study, we welcomed World Food Programme to our site to review our test protocols and approach to testing bean production in aquaponics. We gained some great feedback on our approach and how to improve result reliability.

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May 2022 - We are proud to announce that we launched Rwanda first commercial aquaponic farm! We held a two day launch event in honour of opening our farm and invited guests from the Government, Wholesalers, Farmers, Investors and many others. Thank you for all those who attended. Anyone who would like to visit the farm, please get in contact.

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March 2022 - We have now installed our electrical/mechanical equipment on site i.e., pumps, filters, power connection. In March we were able to run tests on flow rates, water tightness and build quality. Once testing is complete, we will circulate the system full time for 2 weeks before putting fish in the system.

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February 2022 - At the end of January, we completed our 27 month long project with University of West of Scotland under the Innovate UK Agri-tech Round 8 competition. We successfully engaged with 100's of farmers, retailers and key stakeholders and created an aquaponic test bed for UWS to test their digital farm monitoring prototype on. Following this project we have entered into a 12 month test period with UWS to analyse results.

 

January 2022 - We sold 100's of heads of lettuce from our vegetable trial to wholesalers in Rwanda. Even using soil based farming, our lettuce were 2-3 times the size of other competitors. This was as a result of applying a consistent and optimised approach to growing them, which is embedded in how we do all our farming.

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December 2021 - To further enhance our understanding, NjordFrey conducted a fish supply chain survey across the Eastern region to map all fish pond farmers, their challenges, capacity and potential for expansion. Please contact us to find our more about our plans to support and expand capacity across the existing fish farmers in Rwanda.

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November 2021 - We are pleased to announce that we have hired our new Supply Chain and Communication Officer! Please welcome Alain Niyonshuti and Piaget Asifiwe respectively to NjordFrey. More information about them on our About page.

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October 2021 - We made great progress on the foundation/build stage of our starter kit. We built our sump tank, deep water culture grow build, filters and many other component parts. Now awaiting lining (imported from Kenya) and final key equipment to allow us to begin operations soon.

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September 2021 - We wrapped up the civil works on our pilot/MVP 2000m2 site. We have also begun planning for our next crop planting trials to test and record peppers and lettuce yields using traditional soil farming.

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August 2021 - Civil works is progressing well and on schedule which is great. Also we completed 342 surveys with smallholder farmers and retailers in Rwanda to gain key insight to improve our product and services that we offer!

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July 2021 - We are excited to announce that we have broke ground on our flagship farm! We are carrying out the civil works for our MVP module and the farm is starting to take shape. Check out our social media for image updates. 

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June 2021 - We are excited to announce we are now part of the Mass Challenge 2021 accelerator programme! We look forward to working with people targeting massive challenges. 

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May 2021 - We are pleased to announce we have just been selected by OVO to take part in the SusTech4Rwanda (ST4R) accelerator programme! We look forward to working with them to strengthen our solution.

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April 2021 - We have built our plant nursery and commenced vegetable trials on our flagship farm in Kayonza. We look forward to a fresh salad shortly.

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March 2021 - NjordFrey were featured on CNBC Africa news network. Follow this link to see 'Lars Hededam on the role of social enterprises in advancing sustainable farming'.

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Feb 2021 - We are pleased to announce that NjordFrey have hired a new member to the team. We would like to welcome Cynthia Igiraneza as our new Communication Officer. 

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Dec 2020 - We are pleased to announce that NjordFrey have purchased our first piece of land where we will build our flagship farm. Our site is located in Kayonza District, East Province of Rwanda and we cant wait to begin construction in 2021.

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Nov 2020 - We are looking for new talent within NjordFrey to support on our Social Media and Communication Strategy. As a result we have two open positions:

1. Communications Officer, who will lead or our overall stakeholder management and strategy.

2. Social Media Officer - taking ownership of all our social media presence and continue to raise awareness of NjordFrey as a Rwandan Social Enterprise specialising in Advanced Aquaponic Farming solutions for smallholder farmers

If you are interested in either position then please visit our contact page and ​get in touch with a CV (max 2 pages) and 1 page cover letter for the role you are interested in.

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Oct 2020 - We have just submitted an interesting research proposal related to the development of a Bio-aerosol based diagnostic toolkit with University of Essex and Cranfield University, for the Agritech Catalyst Round 10 Competition. Thank you to both institutes and fingers crossed!

 

Sept 2020 - To ensure innovation is continually pushed within NjordFrey we have enlisted the support of Najam Zubair, as Technology Officer. With his background in Biotechnology, we are currently exploring some very interesting research in the use of Bio-aerosols within the farm environment to provide early stage diagnostic information e.g. can we identify particles that highlight potential pathogens forming.  

 

August 2020 - NjordFrey are pleased to welcome the finale member of our core team, Odile Umuhoza! Odile is our Aquaponic Farm Officer and will be responsible for developing all things aquaponics within the company (click here for more details on all our team members).

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June 2020 - NjordFrey are pleased to welcome new team members, Ignace, Everest and Florence to the team! For more information please click here. We are still looking for a Bio Farm Officer to join our team, with experience and interest in aquaculture and horticulture. If interested, please get in touch via the contact page.

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May 2020 - We reached round 2 of the Mass Challenge - Switzerland Accelerator Programme! This involved Lars completing a pitch with Q&A session to a panel of diverse judges. Unfortunately we did not progress further, however congratulations to those that did! For more information on the challenge, click here.

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Nov 2019 - We have started our 'Digital Health Monitoring' R&D project with our technology partners, University of West Scotland! This Innovate UK funded project will look to develop a unique product that is capable of providing real time health status / updates of our farms, using non-invasive sensors, to inform corrective/proactive responses. For more details click here.

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June - Nov 2019 - NjordFrey were successfully selected as 1 of 18 teams to participant in the EU funded EIT Seedbed Incubator programme; over 120 applicants entered.

As part of the customer journey programme, NjordFrey completed bootcamps in Bilbao, Spain / Brussels, Belgium, and extensive customer interviews and market research across the Netherlands, UK, Denmark, Rwanda and Kenya. All of which was feedback and presented to a panel of judges in November 2019 as part of the final round pitch competition. Though not selected for the final prize, we gained immense value from the programme and have secured customers and expanded our network as a result.