International projects

„Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let us all come back together in 2022 and keep on changing people´s lives.“ wishes Melanie Jooste, Team Leader SUNfarming South Africa.
The whole SUNfarming team agrees with this wish.

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 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.

In 2020 SUNfarming successfully carried out the DeveloPPP project "Vitality Porridge" to combat the consequences of Covid-19 with the help of DEG in South Africa. Over 10,000 school children and their families were directly supplied with high-energy, healthy food (SF Vitality Porridge). In certified training courses, teachers and unemployed relatives of school children were taught theoretical and practical knowledge about ecological, water-saving vegetable growing and healthy eating. As a result, numerous vegetable gardens for self-sufficiency were created in the townships.

Despite the success of the Vitality Porridge Project, there are still major problems providing school meals for the children from families in need. We are therefore pleased to now work with DEG on a significantly larger training and supply project in South Africa with a total volume of almost 10 million euros.

The SUNfarming DeveloPPP project is supported by the June & Andrew Mlangeni Foundation, the non-profit association Food Education Energy and Development e.V. (FEED) of Hamburg, and the F.E.E.D. NGO of South Africa. The non-profit association FEED of Germany and its sister organization in South Africa collect donations from international donors, companies, and foundations to further expand the urgently needed and sustainable development aid in South Africa and that is in addition to the projects through DEG.

The SUNfarming COViD-19 Response Program, which is geared towards sustainability and helping people to help themselves, is divided into three program parts:

SF Vitality Porridge Food Aid Program:
More than 40 schools, 10,000 children and 50,000 of their family members will take part in this sustainable project aimed at helping people to help themselves. Also, 28.8 million packs of high-quality & healthy Vitality Porridge produced by SUNfarming will be delivered and distributed over a period of 18 months.

Vitality Porridge contains not only multiple vitamins and nutrients but also medicinal herbs such as artemisia (African mugwort), turmeric, and ginger to enhance the immunity of the human body.
Training courses on all aspects of organic vegetable growing and healthy eating will again be part of the program.

“The medicinal herbs for the Vitality Porridge are already being grown, dried, processed and bottled by trainees as multiple cultures (intercropping), together with various types of vegetables, in our Food & Energy Training Centers. The extruders provided on the Food & Energy plants for the production of Vitality Porridge have been technically enlarged so that they can produce up to 200,000 food portions per day, ”explainsPeter Schrum, SUNfarming founder and main shareholder.
"We would like to extend our sincere thanks to DEG for the renewed support without which we would not be able to implement this Covid-19 Response Program," continues Peter Schrum.

“We are very pleased to have a reliable partner at our side in Sunfarming, who has been assuring its corporate responsibility in a number of countries for many years. This is anything but a matter of course, we very much appreciate the constant, reliable commitment of Sunfarming to the implementation of the project, ”says Manuela Marques, Head of Customer Solutions at DEG.

The courses offered are monitored by the South African authority SAQA (South African Qualification Authority). The successful candidates are awarded certificates at the end of the program in a small ceremony to symbolize its national recognition of the qualification that facilitates them to enter into the skilled labor market.

Rural parishes support the project comprehensively by encouraging the participation of communities and also by providing their plots of lands for the practical training courses. As a result, such lands owned by churches should continue to be cultivated by parishioners and serve as a source of food for the needy in those communities.

The Covid-19 Response Program offers immediate aid against hunger and, at the same time, sustainable help for self-help through certified training courses in vegetable growing and healthy eating for the local population. Labor is required for production in the Food & Energy centers. Accredited Agri-SETA trainers in organic vegetable cultivation trained by SUNfarming South Africa take on the training of these workers. In this way, new jobs are also created on site.

The theoretical and practical training includes everything necessary for a successful harvest, from soil preparation to sowing, irrigation and pest control. Those plots laid out by the first group are expanded and maintained by subsequent groups. In the course of the growing season, the following groups can learn practically how to control pests and how to prune. Intercropping with medicinal herbs, the use of organic fertilizers, and the efficient use of water resources are covered during the training courses.
The produces, mainly vegetables are sold to the school on favorable terms for the consumption of students & staff. As such, this program has been successful in ensuring multiple benefits such as healthy food, skills development on organic farming, and also it creates enthusiasm and passion for farming. All these benefits are to ensure much sustainable culture towards the well-being of the next generation in the country.

“With the COVID-19 response program for South Africa, which is co-financed by DEG, we are in a position to bring our valuable and long-term experience with food & energy technologies, especially for school children, and approx. 60,000 people daily for 18 months with SF Vitality Supply porridge. We give people a new perspective for life, ”explains David Morr, Project Manager International of the SUNfarming Group.

Daniel Alex, DEG project manager, explains: “This project is very unusual in terms of its size and the effect it will achieve. We rarely reach so many people on different levels - this is made possible by the enormous range of activities. Thanks to the two-pronged approach, we are able to combine short-term food support with the development of sustainable structures for the permanent improvement of living conditions in the areas in South Africa severely affected by Covid-19."