Farmer invest a lot of their time and energy into farming, yet their profitability and sustainability is still largely dependent on external forces that are beyond their control, such as;
1. Irregular and erratic weather patterns makes it hard for the farmer to practice season timing for a better output
2. Nearly 30% of agro-produce goes into waste due to lack of access to market, poor post-harvest handling or lack of value addition/processing skills.
3. The little that gets to the market lands in the hands of the middle men who distort the actual market information in order to exploit the farmers. They will exaggerate the market information to make the farmer feel vulnerable with the farm produce, hence deciding to sell at the mercies of the middle man.
4. Where to find the needed farm inputs (seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, technology, agronomist, Vet) is still a nightmare to rural farmers. This causes the farmers to opt for "what is available" and not the quality inputs. In the end, the farmers harvest is greatly compromised by the poor quality of inputs.
The above four factors are a great impediments to farming as a means of livelihood.
AllFarms will create a platform/an application that will provide a solution to the four problems/challenges by:
a) Develop an All-In-One Application (AllFarms) that the farmer, through their phones or computers, can access weather information, market information, available transportation information and farm input availability.
b) Establish farmers information centers in every region where the farmers, especially those who are still relying on the analogue sources of information, can visit and get the information about the weather, market prices, transportation services and input availability.
c) Establish an agro-produce transport network in the country where we will position specialized transport trucks in each region to enable farmer to use a combined means of transport, thereby reducing the costs to the market.
d) Continuous research and improvement of the services above to catch up with the technological and environmental trends for a greater benefits of both the farmers and those in the agricultural value chain.
Despite the solution being primarily for the challenge of "innovation for inclusive trade", it is highly expected that the solutions above are going to also be for other challenges like climatic change adaptation (weather monitoring) and sustainable and healthy food for all (access to market will increase food accessibility).
Comments