Create Jira Ticket
This idea cannot be sent to Jira.
Agro
Farm Wise: Smart solution hub to empower smallholder farmers and women in agriculture.
In Africa, wastage plagues the agricultural sector, where about 50 % of the food is wasted, which is enough to feed whole continent ad end hunger accord to UN and WFP. Where also 40% of fertiliser applied ends up in rivers, or 70 % of water applied is wasted.
With such gross wastage's and inefficiencies we targeted them and plan to reduce hunger and wastage through Agro
A Smart solution hub solving all problems smallholder farmers face, main branch-Agro solves most pressing issue i.e access to funding, we directly link farm produce processors e.g supermarkets to farmers. We broker and monitor contract where investors inject funding for desired crop. Farmer through Agro branches is assisted to farm.When harvested, investor gets produce at low cost since no middleman. Farmer gets profit, skill. Other agro branches
i.e Agrohow gives farmer specific knowledge about farming reducing risky guesswork farming, to ensure maximum productivity and reduction of wastage in inputs.
AgroTeq gives small farmers access to smart farm technology through community renting eliminates unguided farming by precision farming, Agrocart for farmers to sell their produce and buy inputs directly from/to manufactures eliminating wastage, increasing efficiency in supply chain. Where food wastage is eliminated and where excess produce is reprocessed as dried food to increase shelf life and reach all the people.
With such a connected space will ensure that Agricultural activities are productive and have zero wastage and maximum productivity to ensure hunger is eliminated.
Define three specific objectives that you would like to achieve with your proposal.
We aim to reduce wastage in small holder farmers from the current 50% to zero farm produce. Also eradicating wastage of inputs such as fertiliser through precision farming. Which ensure food security and economic prosperity.
We aim to reduce poverty in smallholder farmers and women in agriculture by giving them the necessary tools to be a successful farmer and maximise their land and inputs.
We aim to reduce the environmental impact produced by farmers through wastage of inputs such as fertilisers which pollute the rivers. By ensuring that the inputs are all efficiently utilised.
What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
Our project will directly and indirectly have impact on Covid 19.
Where due to the covid many people are being retrenched and most people working in other countries are being retrenched in their thousands. With un-employment most people plunge into hunger yet they have land to farm and produce. So Agro will help these people to be able t o have a sustainable lifestyle through commercial and subsistence farming. Since Agriculture is the backbone of Africa it will be able to produce and sustain several populations.
Also during the covid time traditional market stall and consumer-producer systems have been disrupted which then leaves an inefficiencies in supply chains all over which increases food wastage and hunger.
The post covid benefit is the increase in production thereby increasing the GDP and retrenching our economy into a path of recovery.
The pandemic has also resulted in high incidences of hunger and poverty.
What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?
The solution is to leverage accessible technology to ensure sustainable production ,supply and delivery chains in the food production sector.
Mainly addressing to farmers to help them get access to all their farming needs from their phones.
Its making resources and opportunities be available to everyone especially women in agriculture and smallholder farmers with limited competitive advantage.
This simply making these resources available through cheap accessible mobile solutions
Share your story (your narrative)
Did you know:
over 40% of all farmers produce rots before it gets sold ?
Over 40% of the 7.1 million farmers on Zimbabwe live in poverty ?
Over 35% of all fertiliser applied ends up in rivers or water bodies ? according to UN WFP and World Bank
That's a lot of wastage right. I personally went through all this when i was a child staying n a farm with my mother. Slaving mos hours of my weekends only to have most of it wasted and sold at a low price to intermediaries.
Now all this has a definitive toll on smallholder farmers, being ravaged by poverty and lack of access to resources.
Now if all this produce wasted can be redistributed to where they are needed bridging gap between producer and consumer we eliminate wastage and poverty at the same time.
Imagine a situation where a farmer simply sends a text thats cost less than 2 cents and get funding, already have a market before produce is farmed
Now imagine a farmer being able to access the farm knowledge they need at the click of a button
Now imagine being able to get farm produce you know its traceability completely
All this can be made available on a phone without hustle
Revolutionising agriculture as we know it, precision farming brings about sustainable production, supply in agriculture.
Imagine all the farm produce finding a consumer without wastage or rotting
Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.
Our solution is specifically tailored for developing countries as most of them rely on agriculture as the backbone of their economy. Increased productivity and wastage will result in less poverty and equal distribution of food, to make sure every food produced is utilised.
This will also in turn improve countries GDP and economic output as a whole. With over 80% of food produced in Africa is made by small holder farmers hence empowering them is empowering developed countries.
Currently Africa has enough food to feed its population the inefficiencies cause disparities between supply and demand, Such simple technology applied on a Continental scale will result in hunger and poverty ending.
Your Final Proposal for challenge
yes
While I admire your passion to make an impact in your community, I think you should state or pitch your solution properly (Refer to the provided canvas).
Farm wise, Agrohow, Agroteq, et al are all huge areas that demand focus and specialization atleast at the early stages. I think you need to give attention to one solution area and when giving statistics to back your project, please mention where the link it can be sourced from.
You're almost there, keep pushing.
Hi Tafa, if I were to give it a name it would be "Farm Wise Hub" and as the name implies an incubation centre for small medium scale farmers where they would acquire knowledge on best practices and the use of drone technology in monitoring, evaluation and implementation of best farming practices even pest control. Idea needs more clarity. What's the business model? Well done!
Useful comments above and also maybe looking at how it links o cooperatives which are already successful models across many areas.
Great project!
I would suggest an explanation in terms of the impacts you are expecting with figures.
Hello Tafadzwa, I hope you are well. I really admire your passion and coming from a farming family I can understand the value it adds. I have few questions and would really appreciate if you can answer;
1) Farmers in many regions are not that much familiar with smartphones and changing technology, so I think providing them with a training before starting would be needed. How you are approaching this problem.
2) How are you making sure that the production and requirement are balanced to avoid access or shortage, as a farm can sometime produce smaller quantity than anticipated?
and I would like you to explain how you are convincing farmers to adopt this technology as most farmers in my experience aren't open to new options. I think you should arrange workshops and seminars to attract farmers and share success stories with them to convince them. Would really appreciate if you can answer my questions, looking forward to your replay, Thank you.
Status label added: Mentor feedback received
That's a very good idea . Please can you tell your business model ?
hello Tafadzwa, Love your project, My organization name in "Women in Digital" and you are working for women in agriculture. I believe it will be more impactable if you add more technical things to it. the tracking system, monitoring system, distribution tracking, and farmer expertise, etc. you can integrate so many things with it.
is the 'hub' a hardware unit? or is it mostly content? how data intensive is it? does it need a high speed internet connection? is there a revenue model for the hub operator/owner? could be interesting. did you check Kuza One?
Hi Tafadzwa,
Good idea. How will you measure the rate of poverty reduction of your target audience, once you've given them the necessary tools?
Excellent project !
Let us explore the synergies with ourSmart Village project.
I see only one vote is missing. It can be annoying, I'd rather give one.
Hi Tafadzwa, I finally found you project and I admire your passion in making impact in agriculture. Though I have few concerns such as as we mostly know most farming communities are not familiar with technology and much less some of them are not aware of digital tools such as smart phones, ipads, how are you going to approach this challenge whilst providing them your solution?
Users tagged:
Hi Tafadzwa, this is a fantastic solution for small farmers using simple technologies. What is your revenue/business model ? or is this a charitable operation? In Myanmar where I am based I have seen some micro-finance companies join hands with platform to provide micro loans of 400 - 500 USD to farmers for buying raw materials, seeds, fertilisers etc. Do you have something similar in Zimbabwe? Do you have a presentation deck you can share that can explain your business model? Thanks.
Status label added: Community feedback received
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.
Rear and valuable niche, keep it up
Great work! You should also establish research for more utilization of farm produce, this will enable the discovery of more use of farm produce, thereby adding more value to farm produce.
Hi, discuss how you closed the gap between your challenges and opportunities. Elaborate the mechanisms, process, and key activities of your MVP. Also discuss the feasibility of your solution. Share if there's any success stories.
You can start working on the final submission form. Watch the final webinar. It will help you tremendously. Remember to submit the video and the challenge ends on 31 August.
Users tagged:
Status label added: Expert feedback received
Status label added: Submission completed
Status label added: Idea under jury review
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.