By Dean Chisambo
Solidaridad and Kvuno has proposed open data farmer ecosystem to maximise the benefit and the requirement of a farmer inorder produce more yields through the use of digital inclusion in rural areas that will support smallholder farmers through sharing of data among the organizations.
Solidaridad and Kvuno made this proposal during the Natural Resources Pan Africa Network ( FANPARN) annual regional multi-stakeholders policy dialogue conference which was held in Lilongwe.
Solidaridad digital innovation leads Candice Kroutz said it is a need for the stakeholders within the sector to share data which they are collecting but to make it to be possible it needs to improve coordination in the sector and also to bring the cost of operation down for everyone within the sector.
She said: ” when we have the more holistic view on the farmers support, we can make better decision on how to support those farmers.”
Kroutz stated that in the NGO sector there is a lot of competition of funding that reduces the effort of , however the level of duplication effort and consequences are lack of impact for those effort hence that problem can be addressed through data sharing within the sector.
On his part Kvuno country operation leader in Mozambique and Malawi Igor Espanaol said their role is to use technology to deliver mile services to farmers and allow them to have access on different types of services.
He further said he was very excited to be on a conference because they had an opportunity to showcase on how they can share data across various organizations inorder to maximise the effort and working with solidaridad they introduced the farmer’s identity card so that farmers who work with them can be easy to capture the information of a farmer about the crops they cultivate and how much money they make with those crops.
He further mentioned that together with solidaridad they are working with farmers in cotton sector in this country through providing certified seeds because they realise that there are low production of cotton due to lack of access to certified seeds among the farmers.
Espanaol emphesised that they are in a process of buying cotton from those farmers and they have introduced electronic payment for cotton farmers to make sure that farmers in a cotton sector are getting paid for their production through mobile payment to avoid theft in this country.
FANRPAN annual regional multi-stakeholders policy dialogue brought together several civil society organisations in agriculture sector.
Solidaridad and Kvuno are the organizations which they promote and innovate agriculture through supporting farmers in Southern Africa.
