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08/09/2026
Professor Hakeem Owolabi, Principal Investigator for the University of Greater Manchester (UGM), and Dr Nafisa Nalbandh, Co-Investigator, are playing key roles in a new $2million international research and innovation project, HARVIST – “Hub for Agricultural Resilience through Value-chain, Irrigation, Storage, and Technology”.
The two-year project, which kicked off on the 1st of August runs from 2026 to 2028, is being funded through the 3DEN – Digitalisation for Flexible and Resilient Energy Systems (III) Call for Proposals, a funding initiative supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security (Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Sicurezza Energetica).
UGM's Contribution to HARVIST
UGM is part of an international consortium led academically by the University of Hertfordshire, working alongside a UK SME with expertise in climate-resilient farming, African tertiary institutions and small businesses with expertise in renewable energy deployment.
Within this international partnership, Prof Hakeem Owolabi and Dr Nafisa Nalbandh are leading UGM's contribution across three key work packages:
Through these work packages, Prof Owolabi and Dr Nalbandh will contribute to translating the project's research and technological innovations into practical, commercially viable and scalable solutions.
An Integrated Approach to Agricultural Resilience
HARVIST adopts a highly innovative and integrated approach to addressing interconnected agricultural challenges in Nigeria, including pre-harvest irrigation constraints, post-harvest losses and rural energy insecurity.
One of the project's key innovations is a Blockchain Aggregation Platform designed to improve connections between smallholder farmers and bulk buyers. Currently, many smallholders have limited direct access to bulk markets and depend on intermediaries to aggregate and sell their produce.
HARVIST will introduce blockchain-enabled aggregation through web and mobile applications, allowing users, particularly bulk buyers, to aggregate produce listed by smallholder farmers. Tokenisation will support the aggregation process, while blockchain-based ledger technology will provide improved traceability from the smallholder farmer through to the end user.
A second major component is solar-powered cooling and storage. HARVIST combines off-grid solar-powered cold storage with a blockchain-enabled digital marketplace to address both the physical infrastructure and transaction inefficiencies affecting Nigeria's agricultural supply chain.
Many existing cold-storage facilities rely on diesel generators or unstable grid electricity, making them unreliable and costly for smallholder farmers. Solar-powered cooling provides an alternative that can operate in off-grid and weak-grid environments, helping about 10,000 smallholder farmers, women and young people to preserve perishable produce, reduce waste and improve their ability to reach markets.
Building International Research and Innovation Partnerships
The involvement of Prof Owolabi and Dr Nalbandh provides UGM with an important opportunity to contribute to an international programme focused on the intersection of digitalisation, renewable energy, agricultural resilience and sustainable development. Many thanks to Carol Brown [Greater Manchester Business School’s head of school], Dr Iain Stalker, and the university for the institutional-level support for this bid.
Over its 2026–2028 implementation period, HARVIST is expected to support more than 10,000 smallholder farmers, women and young people, while contributing to the development and deployment of additional solar-powered agricultural hubs.
For more information about the project, you can contact Prof Hakeem and Dr Nafisa via the following emails: h.owolabi@greatermanchester.ac.uk and N.nalbandh@greatermanchester.ac.uk
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