Open modular farm pilot · Vilanculos, Mozambique

Foundation · Ground window open · Zero units · Zero baselines

Raising real yields
on the ground.

Modular farm units for smallholders — solar water, better inputs, honest data. Public costs and failures. Nothing installed yet.

Honest status (27 Jul 2026)

Docs + offline field kit are live. Next ~2 weeks: return to Rumbacaca / Vilanculos. Operator lost a prior large commercial bet here (~ZAR 10m order) — this pilot is small, open, and measured. Season 1 numbers are design targets, not results.

Trip log · Registry (0) · Day-one essay · What to do now

Start here

Five paths — not forty links. Full library on docs.html.

White paper Living thesis — revises with data (v0.1-draft) Roadmap Phases 0–3 · milestones · what changes when Master plan PLAN.md — ops detail, risks, full doc map Who & integrity Jacques Theron · INTEGRITY.md · no ghost units Unit package UNIT.md · SEASON.md · ~$1.3–3k planning band Community deal What’s in it for households · capital protection Risks & theft RISK_AND_GAPS · SECURITY_THEFT · why others failed All documents → Grouped library · field PDFs · AI · remote path

Problem & approach

Smallholder maize in Mozambique is often ~0.4–1.3 t/ha (near ~1 t/ha nationally) — below what water, seed, and fertility can deliver. Sources: SOURCES.md. Most projects are opaque. Large commercial bets also fail (logistics, cost, land, theft).

Our bet: small modular units, local baselines before any % claim, public failures. Optional AI and Starlink support the farm — they are not the product.

Core package

  • Solar-powered irrigation
  • Improved seed + micro-dose fertilizer
  • Phone agronomy (demos open; live rates after review)
  • Hermetic storage · optional poultry/goats

BOM & costs: UNIT.md · Calendar: SEASON.md · Economics (illustrative): ECONOMICS.md

Charter (short)

  • Binding: publish costs, yields, failures; baseline before impact %
  • Aim (not measured): ~30–60 units if land/water/capital allow
  • Aim (hypothesis): large yield gains vs local baseline
  • Open model others can copy or reject with eyes open

CHARTER.md · INTEGRITY.md

Fighting fraud

Named human for every number. No % win without baseline. Truth marks F/E/H. Failures stay public. Unit registry before “N units” — live count: units.html (0).

Full policy: INTEGRITY.md. Challenge a number: GitHub issue or team@groundyield.org.

Who

Jacques Theron — founder / operator. Self-funded. No legal entity yet. Day job: HSE, Anabeeb, KSA. Pilot return: Rumbacaca.

Prior Vilanculos-scale farming failed/left (~ZAR 10m operator-disclosed). Not claiming those hectares today. LESSONS_MZ.md · WHO.md

Roadmap

0 — Foundation (now) · paper, trip, quotes · registry 0
1 — First units · few modular installs on registry
2 — Season proof · public yields/costs/failures
3 — Replication · playbook others can run

PLAN.md · Gates G0–G6

Field kit

Field one-pager · Field forms · FIELD_KIT · GROUND_TRIP

Documents

Full grouped library (farm, risk, AI, field, ops): docs.html

Or browse the repo: github.com/groundyield/website

Contact

Email
team@groundyield.org — Portuguese welcome
X
@GroundYield
Corrections & challenges
Public issue

Latest updates

Full log: UPDATES.md · updates.rss

Site UX cleanup: homepage simplified; document library at docs.html.

Remote ops path: future sensors/cameras/solenoids — REMOTE_OPS.md.

AI staged unfreeze: L1 demos open; rates gated — AI_FIELD_PATH.md.

Public home of the pilot · Zero units until the registry says otherwise.

White paper → Roadmap → Docs → Registry (0) → Português → X → GitHub → Email →