In Rwanda, post-harvest loss account to 25% especially from grain production and fruits. This loss is especially seen in rural areas where farmers do not have easy access to market and because of their little skills, they do not pay close attention during harvesting and drying which is the leading way to a post-harvest loss. The loss highly affects people during the drought period where many rural populationsstarve during that period. Not only that farmers suffer from this challenge but also vendors at the market find it difficult to get fresh harvest especially fruit and sometimes farmers are given small price which does not pay to the effort they have used during plantation.
In order to solve this challenge, MarKonnect wants to establish harvest collection post in rural areas and connect to urban markets.
HOW THE SOLUTION WORKS:
The post will be having representatives who will reach to farmers directly at their farm and buy their harvest at a good price(that will change the lives of rural farmers and be happy with their occupation) and in the way of making the cashless economy, the payment will be done through mobile money system. After that for grain produce, we will dry them at our post and provide a comfortable packaging and storage as a way of minimizing the loss. For vegetables and fruits, we will conduct a direct market to vendors and Agro-processing industries to avoid the damage.
All in all, we will offer free delivery to market vendors and agro-processing industries which are not situated in rural areas. In order to find the market easily, we will establish a mobile application where we will be having a subscription to farmers(educated farmers), vendors and Agro-processing industries. To the farmers, also the mobile application will provide farming skills.
SCALABLE IMPACT:
In rural areas, most of the population depend on agriculture but it seems to not change their lives because their harvest do not get access to direct market and if it happens, they are given unfair price which does not significantly change their life and when their stock is over, they buy back from the market at higher price which sometimes they cannot afford, So we will offer a good price to the farmers and when their stock is over we will try to offer an affordable price(in the essence of ensuring food security during a bad period of harvest) from our storage, last but not least, we will provide jobs to many people as possible.
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