Johannesburg, South Africa - 18 June 2026
Today we are launching the Selemo Initiative, our agriculture-first clean-energy migration programme for South African agricultural operators and co-operatives. We created Selemo because electricity has moved from a background utility cost into one of the most urgent production risks in agriculture. Our work is focused on helping qualifying operators move away from expensive and unstable electricity dependency through a simple switch to a new and improved energy tariff.
Electricity has become a production risk
Across South Africa, agricultural operators are expected to irrigate land, run cold storage, operate pumps, power processing facilities, maintain production cycles and protect rural jobs while electricity tariffs and municipal bills continue rising. We see the pressure directly in the operators who approach us: electricity is no longer an ordinary overhead. For many agricultural operations, especially irrigation-heavy and cold-chain sites, it now shapes margins, yield, product quality, food security and employment.
What we are changing
The Selemo Initiative is our response to that pressure. Instead of asking an operator to buy energy infrastructure before relief can begin, we assess whether the operation can make a simple tariff switch backed by cleaner generation. The goal is simple: the operator keeps capital inside the operation, we carry the infrastructure responsibility where the site qualifies, and the energy pathway becomes a new and improved tariff rather than a stack of separate quotes, loans and technical promises.
No operator financing application
Selemo is not a loan, not credit and not a debt product placed on the operation's balance sheet. We are not asking agricultural operators to apply for funding to buy a solar system. We are asking them to let us test whether their existing electricity spend, premises, tariff and load profile can support a better migration path. Where the case qualifies, the operator does not carry infrastructure, installation, maintenance, insurance, deposits or hidden system recovery fees as a separate capital project.
Who we want to assess
If an agricultural operation is registered, operating in South Africa and spending more than R10,000 per month on electricity, we want to assess it. Our founder, Karman Kekana, has been clear about the standard we are applying: we are not looking for operators who want another finance product. We are looking for operators already paying meaningful electricity costs, where our team can determine whether a cleaner tariff migration can reduce cost while keeping infrastructure accountability with Foundation-1 and our delivery partners.
What savings can look like
Our migration pathways are built around the real operating profile. Generocity can support qualifying on-site solar migration through a simple tariff switch: a new Power Purchase Agreement at a 40 percent discount to the current grid tariff. Lumen combines on-site solar and wheeled clean energy for a guaranteed 60 percent saving, with heavier utility profiles able to scale toward 80 percent. Since our launch at the beginning of June, we have four companies migrating, with projected savings of R30 million.
When off-grid migration is the better case
Some agricultural operations need more than a tariff improvement. For qualifying sites, we can also assess whether an operation should migrate completely off-grid and remove Eskom dependency entirely. That matters for loads tied to irrigation, cooling, pumping, poultry houses, dairy operations, packhouses and processing facilities. When electricity becomes unaffordable or unstable, water does not move, produce does not cool, processing slows, expansion is delayed and rural jobs become vulnerable. Our role is to design around those realities, not around a generic solar product.
Where our rollout is moving
We are currently assessing and migrating agricultural operators across South Africa. We are also in discussions with a local municipality in the North West province on a public-private partnership focused on agricultural energy migration. In Limpopo, we are working with Traditional Councils to prepare the same initiative for agricultural operators and co-operatives in rural communities. Our intention is to make agricultural energy migration available beyond the largest operators and into the rural economies that depend on production staying viable.
Why agriculture comes first
Foundation-1 works with larger industries too, but agriculture comes first for us. If we can help agricultural operators lower their energy costs, protect production and preserve jobs, this work becomes bigger than an energy transaction. It becomes infrastructure for food security, local employment and rural resilience. That is why Selemo starts with agriculture and why our assessment language focuses on the whole operation, from production and packing to processing, cold chain and distribution.
Agricultural resilience infrastructure
We believe South Africa cannot build food security on an electricity system that agriculture cannot afford. The Selemo Initiative is built around our view that agricultural energy migration should be treated as economic infrastructure because it affects production, jobs, rural livelihoods and the resilience of the food system. Through Selemo, our aim is to help operators and co-operatives move away from expensive, unstable electricity dependency and into a new and improved tariff system that protects agricultural production and rural jobs.