Photo Credit: spore.cta.int

Technical solutions to food tracking, traceability and distribution are enabling agribusinesses along the value chain to better manage and expand their operations. Such innovations also help farmers and farmer organisations to establish and strengthen links with buyers.

Around the world, new technologies are helping to maximise efficiency in the distribution of fresh produce from farms to markets. Farmforce – one such innovation that’s having a global impact – is a cloud-based mobile and web platform, which supports the professional relationship between smallholder farmers and buyers, enabling increased transparency along the value chain through the collation of detailed farm data. Food companies across 25 different countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America use the platform to coordinate the activities of over 250,000 farmers and ensure food meets safety and sustainability standards.

In Haiti, Acceso Peanut Enterprise Corporation, an agribusiness built by the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership in 2014, uses Farmforce to help oversee their rural operations. Acceso collects groundnuts from more than 3,000 Haitian farmers at depots located near farming communities, tests the nuts to ensure they do not exceed aflatoxin limits and sells them on to large buyers. The company not only provides a ready market for its network of smallholders at a fair price, but also offers the farmers training in good agricultural practices and inputs on credit, to improve their groundnut yields and quality.

Since its launch, Farmforce has enabled Acceso to manage its daily operations and keep comprehensive records of farm data, training attendance, yield forecasts, loan repayments and harvest purchases. Access to this data from the last 4 years has allowed Acceso to assess the impact of its operations and gain a better understanding of which strategies are the most effective for sustainably delivering higher quantity and quality groundnut yields. “Farmforce’s ability to log geo-references for farmer registration, field visits, and survey responses gives me the ability to see where my team is and what work they are doing in real-time,” explains Patrick Dann Dorzin, deputy operations manager at Acceso. With Farmforce’s help, Acceso has tested and sold 800 t of groundnuts since its launch and has begun to expand its portfolio to include other crops such as lime, mango, moringa, sorghum, sisal and castor.

Enhancing aggregation

The efficient distribution of fresh produce is not entirely reliant on technology; aggregation centres and collection points play a key role in ensuring food supplied by smallholder producers makes it to the market in the safe, fresh and high-quality condition required by buyers. Through its FoodTrade programme, the NGO Farm Africa has focused its support on farmers’ organisations, village aggregation centres (VACs) and satellite collection points in Tanzania and Uganda. The NGO builds the business and governance capacities of these farmers’ organisations and VACs to help them establish long-term links with buyers and sustainably grow their business.

Using digital market information systems, Farm Africa has also enabled farmers’ organisations and VACs to monitor market prices, which ensure the aggregators have leverage to negotiate a fair and competitive price for produce. Improved aggregation and access to market information, has helped supported organisations and VACs sell 104,700 t of aggregated produce and gain higher prices than the value most farmers would previously have received at local markets. At the farmer-level, Farm Africa has worked to advocate the benefits of aggregation to farmers and, in just over 2 years, 72,800 farmers have started aggregating their produce.

Run like clockwork

Kenyan start-up, Selina Wamucii, allows buyers to source, aggregate, and redistribute fresh produce from African smallholders to markets (domestic and export) through its mobile platform. To join the platform, farmers simply text Selina Wamucii a code and, with the data, the company is able to map a farmer’s location, their produce and the volume harvested. Working with over 3,000 farmers, the company organises them into small groups according to crop variety and coordinated by produce agents. At harvest, the crop volume produced is recorded on the platform and farmers are immediately paid via their mobiles; a traceability code is also generated so that the produce can be tracked from its origins to the market.

Selina Wamucii then grades, packages, distributes and markets the produce under 10 different brands, including Mount Kenya Fresh Avocados, Kenya Herbs & Spices and Essential Oils of Africa. “We’re tapping into the power of mobile phones to transform the value chain while passing the benefits of an efficient chain on to the farmers and produce buyers,” explains Kariuki Gaita, co-founder of Selina Wamucii. The company’s success is evidence that with the right technologies and relevant capacities in place, food produced by smallholder farmers across the world can meet the demands of international markets.

Credit: CTA Spore

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Photo Credit: abudhabichamber.kr

The Abu Dhabi Farmers’ Service Centre, ADFSC, has revealed the ‘Agricultural Production Plan’ for the 2018-2019 season, starting from mid-August till June 2018.

The ADFSC identified 68 different types of fresh vegetables, including six fruit crops for the first time in the agricultural plan to encourage farm-owners to cultivate certain types of fruits.  It also includes 18 varieties of organic crops to encourage farmers to switch to organic farming.

While the agricultural season plan 2018-2019 introduces diversification of production of various crops required for the market during the next winter and summer seasons, three primary crops account for about 70 percent of the total expected production.

Cucumber alone accounts for about 38 percent of the total expected production followed by round tomatoes by 26 percent, and capsicum by six percent of the total production expected to be supplied to the markets. The Farmers’ Service Centre organised a farmer’s forum to familiarise them with the details of the plan. Two meetings were held with Abu Dhabi and Al Dhafra farmers on Monday afternoon. The second meeting with Al Ain farmers was held on Tuesday afternoon. The executive schedule of the plan was explained with regards to crops and expected revenues for the farmers.

“This year’s agricultural plan represents a significant shift in the work of the centre as it focuses on encouraging the shift towards organic farming and fruit cultivation,” said Nasser Mohammed Al Junaibi, Acting CEO of the ADFSC.

The ADFSC will ensure the marketing of crops supplied annually, including figs, mangoes, oranges, guava, grapefruit and lemons. It will also market herb varieties, including mint, parsley and coriander to meet the local demand. Al Junaibi added that the agricultural plan has become an annual practice through which the Farmers’ Service Centre organises the activity within the farms and the continuity of production for longer periods in order to achieve sustainability in the agricultural sector, support food-security and strengthen the local product position in the market. It also aims to secure equilibrium between open farms and greenhouses to prevent competition between them and allow everyone to market produce according to consumer needs.

The CEO of the Farmers’ Service Centre called on Abu Dhabi farmers to expedite communication with the centre for registration and briefing of the requirements of the plan, stressing that it has been prepared specifically for the benefit of the national farm owners, based on actual studies conducted on market trends and the process of supply and demand of agricultural products that can be grown in the local soil.

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Josephine Mbinya, a farmer, poses for a photograph on her maize plantation at her farm in Joska, Kenya, on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016.. Photographer: Riccardo Gangale/Bloomberg

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Dutch multinational banking and financial services company, Rabobank have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to renew their corporation to boost productivity for small farmers in Africa.

In Tanzania, the partners helped rice and cassava producer groups generate eightfold increase in productivity by improving water, labour, storage and credit practices.

Also, in Ethiopia, the FAO and Rabobank worked with local microfinance lenders to create jobs for the youth, while another project was focused on helping local cooperatives by promoting conservation agriculture in Kenya.

Also See: All You Need to Know about MTFC Innov8Agric Challenge

The partnership, which began in 2013, has helped small-scale farmers and cooperatives in developing countries become economically independent.

“Cooperatives and other associations are the only way for providing family farmers with technical assistance, capacity building, financial resources and access to modern technologies,” he said. “They are also important to promote closer cooperation between farmers and research institutions, to help smaller farmers gain a voice in policy-making and to provide extension and advisory services to their members,” FAO director-general José Graziano da Silva, said.

Graziano da Silva said that investments in infrastructure such as roads and storage capacity would help to connect producers, agro-industrial processors and other segments of the value chains.

He also called for an “urbanization of rural areas” to better provide education, health, electricity, and internet access.

The post Rabobank, FAO Renew Partnership To Help African Farmers appeared first on MTFC | Meet The Farmers Conference - Nov 2019 - Dubai UAE.

Photo Credit: agronigeria.com.ng

The Minister of State for Niger Delta affairs, Claudius Omoleye Daramola has asked Niger Delta communities to make the best utilization of palm oil processing plants being built up by the Federal Government through the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs in community in the Niger Delta area for significant effects in their lives.

‘’The huge investment by the Federal Government could only be justified if these facilities are guarded jealously and put into effective use such that will impact positively on the community through improved standard of living,’’ the Minister said.

He said that the establishment of an Integrated Palm Oil Processing Plant at Umuehie was in accordance with the Economic Recovery and Growth Programme (ERGP) of the Federal Government which as indicated by him will no uncertainty enhance the palm oil being delivered at the community and its environs.

Daramola stated this at the opening and handing over ceremony of an Integrated Palm Oil Processing Plant at Umuehie community in OkwuIkeduru Local Government Area, Imo State

The minister stressed that the approach would urge more farmers to wander into Palm Oil cultivation and extend the generation of the production which is in accordance with Federal Government’s strategy on economy diversification.

The post Nigerian Federal Government Establishes Palm Oil Processing Plant in its Niger Delta Communities appeared first on MTFC | Meet The Farmers Conference - Nov 2019 - Dubai UAE.

Photo Credit: guardian.ng

As part of its effort to ensure more participation in the agribusiness in Africa, Corporate farmers International (CFI) has launched an agriculture innovative platform, “Agrotainment radio” to create a wider and larger platform for the agribusiness industry in the continent.

The app will give Nigerian and African farmers a voice to talk, be heard and a platform to connect sellers of agricultural produce in Nigeria and Africa, to consumers in any nation across the globe.

As stated by CFI Managing Partner, Akin Alabi, during a chat with journalists in Lagos, he said, “the mobile app gives you an opportunity to showcase your products and services, provide an opportunity to get first-hand information on sponsors or grants for your agricultural projects.

“It is also a platform to further grow Nigeria and Africa’s agricultural extension services, and provide a 24-hour knowledge sharing platform on various agricultural enterprise and value chain.”

CFI National Coordinator, Ade Ajayi also maintained that, “Farmers voices need to be heard and we are also using this platform to reach out to a wider audience and also grow the Agric extension services.”

The app can be downloaded on Google Play Store for android mobile phone users.

The outlook of the African continent is here for everybody to exploit each opportunity and make individuals communicate and exhibit themselves to the world.

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