The Transformational Tech sequence highlights Cisco’s nonprofit grant recipients that use know-how to assist remodel the lives of people and communities.
More than 84 % of agricultural producers are smallholder farmers, based on Our World in Data; which means their farms are lower than two hectares. While they produce one-third of the world’s meals, a lot of them expertise poverty themselves and, paradoxically, usually don’t have sufficient meals to feed their households. The excellent news is, progress in agriculture may very well be as much as two to 4 occasions more practical in elevating incomes amongst the poorest, in comparison with progress in different sectors.
With the audacious aim of fixing world poverty in thoughts, One Acre Fund (OAF) has been working since 2006 to produce smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa with the sources they should enhance their harvests, increase their incomes, undertake environmentally pleasant farming practices and diversify crops to extend resilience to disasters. Among their providers that are facilitated by over 6,000 discipline officers, throughout 9 nations, OAF affords versatile financing whereby farmers can buy high-quality seeds and fertilizers on credit score and repay a greenback right here or a greenback there as they get cash; supply of inputs to areas inside strolling distance of each farmer; coaching; insurance coverage; and entry to revolutionary merchandise and applied sciences.
Originally, OAF provided a once-a-year supply of seeds, fertilizers, and different farming merchandise from centralized warehouses to farmers’ rural villages, simply in time for planting season. In 2019, they launched the Tupande program in Kenya, which features a one-stop store for high quality farm provides within the type of brilliant yellow delivery containers known as dukas (Swahili for “shop”), arrange within the rural villages nearer to the farmers. These dukas are transformative as a result of farmers can now entry the provides they want regionally, all yr spherical. To-date, OAF has opened 110 dukas throughout Kenya, with the aim of getting 220 by finish of yr. Their aim is to broaden to 330 dukas by mid-2023, with every scaled to serve about 1,500 Kenyan farmers; and in the end launch this system in different nations through which they work.
Tupande Goes Digital
With the help of Cisco’s Global Impact Grant program, OAF has developed the Tupande cellular utility, which went stay in Kenya in April 2022. The app permits farmers to browse OAF’s product catalog, examine costs, view merchandise photographs and descriptions, decide what’s in inventory at their native duka, and order – all from their cell phone. “The digital penetration is a lot higher in Kenya than it is in many of the other nearby countries,” defined Claire McGuinness, Senior Analyst of OAF’s Strategy and Partnerships. “It’s a good area for us to test, learn, and roll out [new technologies] to farmers.”
Julius Tovesi, an entrepreneur who helps his household and broader neighborhood of their farming endeavors, mentioned “I first heard about the mobile app through an Officer at the Tupande Kakamega duka who walked me through how to navigate it. I looked through it, compared prices and products on offer with those at the duka, and I was impressed, and haven’t stopped using it since!” Once an order is positioned from the app, farmers can both go to their native duka to choose up their merchandise, or they will have them delivered straight to their houses.
The app just isn’t solely handy for farmers, however it additionally considerably improves OAF’s operations by decreasing the period of time discipline officers spend dealing with orders. With this time financial savings, they will interact with extra farmers to ship coaching and different value-added providers. “The point of leverage for us, historically, has been thinking about how our field officers can serve more people,” defined Claire. “Because the more people who can be served by one field officer, the more efficient the program becomes, and the more people you can reach. [The Tupande app] came to us as the logical next step of reaching even more farmers. It offers farmers a lot more flexibility, because while they can place an order with their field officer, they also don’t have to wait for them to come around to place an order.”
The Tupande app can also be a approach for OAF to raised interact with a rising technology of younger farmers who grew up with tech and like tech-led options. As older farmers are retiring, OAF is targeted on leveraging know-how to draw and retain this youthful technology of farmer.
Gearing up for scale to feed a rising inhabitants
While it’s nonetheless an early-stage pilot, the Tupande cellular app might allow OAF to achieve 50,000 to 100,000 solely new Kenyan farming households inside the subsequent few years.
“The app is a great way to leverage trust that we’ve built over time and allow us to use it to reach so many more people so much more efficiently.” Claire went on, “There are 50 million smallholder farming families in Africa. We’re laser focused on the idea of scale and how we can get to those additional farmers.”
This is very necessary since it’s estimated that the world’s inhabitants will develop by no less than two billion folks by 2050, and growing smallholder farmers’ yields will likely be a vital a part of guaranteeing there will likely be sufficient meals to go round. Cisco is proud to help organizations like One Acre Fund which can be utilizing know-how to assist to cut back poverty, improve meals safety and construct thriving resilient communities.
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