The Transformational Tech collection highlights Cisco’s grant recipients that use know-how to assist remodel the lives of people and communities. This weblog options Cisco’s partnership with Fairfood, a non-governmental group (NGO) based mostly within the Netherlands. In case you are concerned with a deep dive on this partnership, please contact Sue-Lynn Hinson.
New analysis by the United Nations Meals and Agriculture Group exhibits that the world’s practically 500 million smallholder farmers produce round one third of the world’s meals provide. But a lot of them stay on lower than USD $2 per day and may barely feed and maintain their very own households. Truthful and moral enterprise practices are a rising concern amongst customers; but many agri-food firms battle to construct model belief and show that they’re working sustainably, treating farmers and meals employees ethically and paying them a residing revenue.
Fairfood has developed a blockchain-based know-how platform known as Hint with assist from Cisco. Hint permits full transparency throughout the meals provide chain, and gives knowledge, proof, and insights with which firms can develop applications and methods to implement moral enterprise practices and enhance the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers and meals employees.
“The connection between the client and the producer, to me, is a very powerful. It’s
good to have this transparency contained in the cooperative; to have the ability to present what we’re
doing with the espresso, each step of the method. It helps construct robust and reliable
relationships with consumers.”
—José Francisco Villada (Panchito), Espresso producer and co-founder of Capucas
Fairfood’s mission is to speed up change in the direction of truthful and sustainable meals worth chains, partnering with agri-food firms to develop revolutionary enterprise fashions that profit firms and cooperatives and allow truthful worth distribution fashions that result in larger incomes for smallholder farmers. At the moment connecting greater than 300,000 farmers and their members of the family to the home and worldwide provide chains that form their future, Fairfood’s international operations span 17 international locations and various commodities associated to the cocoa, espresso, spice, horticultural and fruit industries.
Fairfood’s partnership director, Peter van der Linde, shares the non-profit’s know-how evolution and the way its partnership with Cisco has helped it make vital developments in digital inclusion whereas defending knowledge privateness and safety and giving smallholder farmers management over their very own digital info.
What function does know-how play in Fairfood’s mission?
Know-how and digital inclusion are key. Having know-how that may assist securely hint the product from farmer to shopper, finish to finish, is invaluable to bringing optimistic change to truthful and moral meals sustainability, constructing model belief amongst customers by means of provide chain transparency, and serving to us scale to market. Getting everybody on board, from the farmers to the cooperatives, to the manufacturers, retailers, and customers, is significant to creating actual change.
Fairfood adopts a partnership worth chain strategy to traceability, forming knowledge partnerships alongside worldwide meals corridors that profit all events, with a powerful give attention to strengthening the place of farmers as a key a part of sustainability methods. Fairfood’s strategy is exclusive as a result of it’s targeted on system change and centered on each product traceability and publicly verifiable model guarantees that may be linked to particular person merchandise that add tangible worth within the industrial market and assist to construct shopper belief. And the technical infrastructure that’s backed by the partnership with Cisco is important.
How has the assist of Cisco contributed to Fairfood’s know-how growth and the way essential has this been in advancing your technique?
With the assist of Cisco, Fairfood has strengthened its farmer-centric traceability resolution that at the moment permits 46 firms to indicate precisely the place merchandise come from and share proof for model guarantees publicly, whereas enhancing farmers’ incomes. The partnership additionally allowed us to develop a data-secure NFC (Close to Discipline Communication) card system together with a cellular app for first consumers, that permits the event of economic observe data for farmers and neighborhood members who do not need a telephone or a checking account. It’s used to securely digitize proof of money funds offline, making certain monetary transactions can solely be verified by the licensed customers.
Within the markets Fairfood operates in, this idea shifts the ability again to farmers and neighborhood members, permitting them to confirm that funds meant for them are obtained, whereas making certain they continue to be accountable for their very own knowledge. It additionally opens up the chance to make use of these data for monetary inclusion for farmers that do not need a checking account. “We’re exploring methods during which these digital monetary observe data can be utilized for credit score scoring to assist safe primary loans for these farmers that have been beforehand out of scope. It’s an enormous alternative with numerous potential and profit to each the unbanked farmers and monetary establishments”.
What are a few of Fairfood’s accomplishments/wins within the trade thus far?
Fairfood has a objective to enhance the livelihoods of 1 million individuals by 2025. One of many methods we’re making strides to attain this objective is thru novel enterprise fashions. In 2022, Fairfood applied its farmer-centric traceability resolution with Verstegen Spices of their nutmeg provide chain from Indonesia, with a brand new incentive construction whereby farmers are paid a premium for top-quality product, and moreover compensated for offering digital verification of funds obtained. This system had two pathways of change: one geared toward demonstrating the enterprise case for totally traceable nutmeg merchandise, and the opposite targeted on showcasing the potential of incentives to assist structurally enhance funds to farmers. The case acquired highlighted within the report ‘In the direction of a New Paradigm’ commissioned by USAID (DDI) and the Gates Basis.
Watch a brief video about this system.
The report highlights that after the preliminary hybrid financing mannequin (public-private), key events within the worth chain are keen to proceed to cowl the working prices of the app/card system and maintain funds for each high quality and knowledge premiums. Farmer verified transaction data present that the standard and knowledge premiums continued to end in an roughly $100 enhance in revenue per farmer per yr throughout the first yr after implementation (March 2022 – March 2023).
Learn the way Hint is enabling full transparency for the availability chain.
What challenges/roadblocks does Fairfood nonetheless face?
One of many largest challenges Fairfood faces is to show the enterprise case for totally traceable merchandise, as an alternative of the market relying on present sustainability labels. We all know that a few of these labels could be deceptive, and many don’t show that farmers are being paid pretty (regardless of customers pondering that’s what these labels imply). So, bringing our farmer-centric traceability system and approaches to the forefront is essential to creating actual change in the direction of sustainable and moral meals provide chains, shopper consciousness, and model belief. It takes time for individuals to actually perceive the ability of farm-to-fork traceability, however we’re starting to make inroads.
One other problem is with laws. Up till a couple of years in the past, there was an absence of laws round moral and sustainable provide chains. We are actually seeing optimistic change on this space throughout governments in a number of international locations and that is serving to us to select up steam in firms the place sustainability was not beforehand mission-critical to them. A last roadblock space is the shortage of information, and that is the place we’re partnering with our cooperatives to assist them to digitize paper-based processes, for instance enhancing their farmer lists and by supporting them with means to digitize transaction data utilizing our app and card system. Typically it’s ranging from scratch, however as we gather knowledge by means of the Hint platform, we will facilitate actual change all through the availability chain and assist to ensure that farmers are paid pretty for his or her merchandise.
How can customers assist Fairfood’s mission?
There are a number of methods customers will help with Fairfood’s mission in the direction of a sustainable meals system.
- Schooling: Find out about what firms are supporting moral and sustainable meals practices. Being an knowledgeable, accountable shopper will help to affect the system as an entire and result in actual, actionable change. Go to the Fairfood web site for extra info.
- Take pleasure in coding? Become involved: For the tech-savvy, one approach to get entangled is to presumably assist Fairfood by means of open-source software program contributions. Attain out to Derek at, derek@fairfood.org for extra particulars on how one can contribute on Hint cellular.
- Join Fairfood to future partnerships: Know of any native firms concerned with bringing totally traceable merchandise to customers? Attain out to Peter at, peter@fairfood.org.
Share:
