German and Turkish companies used the business meeting to expand existing cooperations or to establish new contacts for future investments in Turkey. The event, which took place on 18 November at the Hilton Hotel in Adana, offered the participants interesting lectures from the German Ambassador Mr. Jürgen Schulz, AHK Turkey Managing Director Mr. Thilo Pahl, Governor of Adana, Mr. Süleyman Elban, Adana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Bora Kocaman.

In his speech, SF Eurasia A.S. Managing Director Sahin Balkan presented our successfully realised SF Food & Energy Training project in Turkey. On 16,000 sqm, renewable energy and food are produced at the same time. In the coming years, the project will enable thousands of refugees and people from the region to find training and work.

On the second day of the business meeting, the German Ambassador and a delegation visited our SF Food & Energy Training Project near the Cevdetiye refugee camp in Osmaniye. He visited the facility with great interest and informed himself about developmentally highly interesting perspectives for the region.

"The aim of the project is to train people as entrepreneurs in the organic food sector and as photovoltaic technicians for renewable energies. This food and energy training project will serve as a blueprint for further development investments in Turkey and Syria. In this way, the project helps Syria and Turkey as well," explains Sahin Balkan CEO SF Eurasia A.S..

Impressed by the excellent results of the project so far, further discussions are planned between the Embassy and SUNfarming about possible future refugee projects in Turkey.

SUNfarming Food & Energy is a PPP project in cooperation with DEG/ KfW.

(Photo from left to right: Rukiye Kara Aydin/Operations and Administration Director SF Eurasia, Sheila Stanton, Sahin Balkan/CEO SF Eurasia, Jürgen Schulz/Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Turkey, Malek Al-Hilal/Project Manager SF Eurasia A.S., embassy delegates)

This year, two further research projects were realised in Rathenow. The Jülich Research Centre analysed the plant growth of various ornamental plant species in different shaded areas. As a second research project, plant physiological parameters were investigated in a scientific set-up. The results are currently being evaluated by the Jülich Research Centre and will be published at a later date.
Two other ongoing research projects of SUNfarming are the fertiliser concentrate production from the liquid fermentation residues of the biogas plant in combination with plant production in the Food & Energy plant and the solar module cooling combined with the reuse of the heat gained for plant cultivation. The results will be published in 2022.

National and international representatives from business and politics show great interest in the forward-looking research projects and have regularly visited the Rathenow Research and Innovation Centre to learn about the projects and further planning during plant tours led by our expert staff. Among others, the Minister of Economics of Brandenburg and the Ambassador of Panama and many agricultural interest groups visited us.

The previous SUNfarming research results of the Agri-Solar plant in Rathenow show that solar energy combined with food production and valuable herbs is an ecologically highly topical issue for the coming years. Our excellent results show that valuable medicinal herbs and regionally produced vegetables can be successfully grown in our SUNfarming Agri-Solar facilities, even on sandy soils.

"To date, we have trained 685 potential new gardeners in the SF Community Entrepreneur training programme. We have created new school gardens on a total area of about 4000 m². From our first trainings at BA Saobi Secondary School in Ikageng, spinach is already being harvested and used in the school kitchen," enthuses Melanie Jooste, Team Leader SUNfarming South Africa.
In addition, during the project period 2021/2022, 28.8 million servings of high-quality, healthy Vitality Porridge developed by SUNfarming will be delivered to more than 40 schools over a period of 18 months through the SF Vitality Porridge food aid programme. It will be distributed to 10,000 school children and 50,000 relatives.
The SUNfarming DeveloPPP project is supported in its organisation by the June & Andrew Mlangeni Foundation, the non-profit association F.E.E.D. (Food-Energy-Education-Development e.V.) Hamburg and the F.E.E.D. NGO South Africa. (The German non-profit association FEED and its sister organisation in South Africa are additionally collecting donations from international donors, companies and foundations in order to further expand the urgently needed and sustainable development aid in South Africa in addition to the DEG project.

More information on the project can be found here:

The Ministry of Economics, Labour and Energy and the Berlin-Brandenburg regional group of the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) awarded the Heinersdorf project a special prize at the Energy Efficiency Award 2021 ceremony.
Heiner Kamper, project manager of SUNfarming: "The jury emphasised the high educational value for the children. Furthermore, the jury praised the project as a positive example of citizen participation in the energy transition.
We congratulate Bürgerenergie Oder-Spree on this award and thank them for their trust in SUNfarming."

The plant size is 47.6 KWp, the produced output is 45,000 KWh and the self-consumption for school and kindergarden is 50%. The communities bear no risk, the roofs are leased from the capital contributions of the cooperative members and supply the community with cheap, renewable energy via the SUNfarming PV system. The citizens' cooperative is planning to lease further roofs and to have them realised.

The pictures show some of the steps in the production process:
Trainees receive hands-on instruction in the selection and proper sorting of harvested mugwort.
Afterwards, the mugwort is gently dried slowly at below 40 degrees in special drying houses powered by solar energy. Slow drying is crucial for the active ingredient content.
After drying, the mugwort is sorted again and then ground into a fine powder.
The finished powder is filled into bags or buckets and delivered to a food factory for further processing.

The yield:

PV generator energy (AC grid) 11,092 kWh
Direct self-consumption 3.325 kWh
Battery charging 2.320 kWh
Grid feed-in 5,446 kWh
Own consumption share 50.8 %
Avoided CO₂ emissions 5,279 kg/year