Rising the tide: How local digital empowerment creates a sustainable future for food production
First published on vodafone.com on 16 June 2021. Written by Jacques de Vos, CEO of
Smallholder farmers are Individuals who grow crops or farm livestock for profit usually with farms that are less than 10 hectares. Subsistence farmers grow food for their own consumption.
Digitally-enabled solutions that link smallholder farmers to high-quality farm inputs (e.g., seeds, fertilisers, herbicides/pesticides), to production and post-harvest machinery and mechanisation services (e.g. irrigation, tractors, cold storage), or to off-take markets, including agro-dealers, wholesalers, retailers, or even to the end-consumer.
Digital supply chain management solutions are business-to-business services that help agribusinesses, cooperatives, nucleus farms, input agro-dealers, and other smallholder farmer value chain intermediaries to manage their smallholder relationships. (CTA D4Ag Digitalisation report, 2019).
Through access to a data exchange architecture, the outcome is a sharp reduction in the risk for any stakeholder transacting within the ecosystem.
The net effect is that at a farmer level, productivity, yields and income can increase by 70-80%; farmers, through appropriate training, learning and support can become more resilient and climate smarter in the face of significant and worsening environmental pressures.
In addition, through focused interventions (e.g. Female extension officers, women focused financial products), gender and equity redress becomes more achievable. Participating enterprises benefit from access to new markets, enhanced security of supply, improved consistency in quality and traceability (compliance) of produce and the ability to securely and quickly transact with farmers. Overall, food security is enhanced, livelihoods significantly improved and societies become more productive and settled.
First published on vodafone.com on 16 June 2021. Written by Jacques de Vos, CEO of
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