Digital Farm Input Technology

by

Edmond Ng'walago | Jun 3, 2020 | in Women in technology challenge | Digital agriculture solutions

State your goals

 To use digital farm input supply approach other than agro-dealer, chain leader and local traders approach. Our technology allow small holder farmers to access organic pesticides from digital tanks connected with pre-paid meters allow easy access of organic pesticide by small holder farmers from developing countries even if they have little amount of money  helping them to increase yield, income and living standard.

 To ensure 100% environmental friendly since the technology ignores the use of packages that after using pesticides they are thrown in farms as empty pesticide bottles polluting the environment. Also ignore the use of chemical pesticide and use organic pesticide that is safe to users and environment.

 To saves time and money; the technology allows smallholder farmers to access pesticide in their working areas hence no transportation cost and time loss of moving from farms to Agro-shops. The situation enables farmers to have enough time working in their farm.

 To provide relevant information; before small holder farmers taping bio-pesticides from the automatic tanks they must do online payment through the mobile phone and /or online banking system receive a billing code with a summary of user instruction in both English and vernacular language based on the country and place where farmers are located.

 To eliminating re-packing of expired farm inputs/pesticide which is done by few untruthfully agro-dealers/suppliers and has adverse effects to the climate.

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

In developing countries small holder farmers work on land plots smaller than 2 hectors. Many are poor and have food insecurity with limited access to markets and services. Their choices are constrained, but they farm their land and produce 80% of the World food. Lack of accessibility and affordability of high quality agriculture input such as pesticides to small holder farmers from developing countries causes 40% of the world crop losses. Poor Agriculture Input Supply Approach such as the agro-dealer approach, the chain leader approach and the local traders approach hinders productivity and incomes to more than 500 million smallholder farmers in developing countries causing them to live under $ 2 per day (World Bank, 2018; FAO 2017: AGRA 2017).

What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

Community shared digital tanks  connected with prepaid meters allows small holder farmers to access organic pesticides in their premises even if they have little amount of money.

Share your story (your narrative)

Edmond Ng’walago is a young leader with four years of experience in Agribusiness. Despite of having a first class bachelor’s degree in Logistics and Transport Management from the National Institute in Tanzania, he has passed Agribusiness mentorship program at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), African Development Bank and fund raising training from Canadian Executive Services Agency and Tanzania private sectors foundation. Also has International certificate in Humanitarian Logistics from Kuene Stiftung Foundation. After one year mentorship and volunteer in Agribusiness at IITA, Edmond assumed the position of Assistant Agribusiness Manager in youth Agripreneur project at IITA from January 2016 to August 2018, becoming responsible for supervising a team of 20 youth Agripreneur each carrying independent agribusiness projects. His good leadership supervision at IITA enabled succession of all 20 agribusiness projects benefiting the community through increasing of nutritious food from sweet potato, Cassava and Rabbits. Also he created employment to more than 100 youth and provide agribusiness training to more than 1000 youth who dropped from school for one reason and another. He has international exposure participating in International entrepreneur conferences in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Rwanda and Turkey.

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

Our company is first company in Africa to implement digital farm input supply approach project that uses digital tanks to deliver organic pesticides to small holder farmers within their premises even if they have little amount of money. Our success is to help and make sure more than 500 Millions small holder farmers from developing countries shifting from living under $ 2 to over $ 5.