The Transformational Tech sequence 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) primarily based within the Netherlands. In case you are desirous about a deep dive on this partnership, please contact Sue-Lynn Hinson.

New analysis by the United Nations Meals and Agriculture Group reveals that the world’s practically 500 million smallholder farmers produce round one third of the world’s meals provide. But lots of them reside on lower than USD $2 per day and might barely feed and maintain their very own households. Truthful and moral enterprise practices are a rising concern amongst shoppers; but many agri-food corporations wrestle 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 allows full transparency throughout the meals provide chain, and gives knowledge, proof, and insights with which corporations can develop packages and techniques 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 patrons.”
—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 corporations to develop modern enterprise fashions that profit corporations and cooperatives and allow truthful worth distribution fashions that result in larger incomes for smallholder farmers. Presently connecting greater than 300,000 farmers and their relations to the home and worldwide provide chains that form their future, Fairfood’s world operations span 17 nations and numerous 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 important developments in digital inclusion whereas defending knowledge privateness and safety and giving smallholder farmers management over their very own digital info.

What position does know-how play in Fairfood’s mission?

Expertise and digital inclusion are key. Having know-how that may assist securely hint the product from farmer to client, finish to finish, is invaluable to bringing constructive change to truthful and moral meals sustainability, constructing model belief amongst shoppers via 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 shoppers, is important 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 centered 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 business market and assist to construct client belief. And the technical infrastructure that’s backed by the partnership with Cisco is crucial.

How has the assist of Cisco contributed to Fairfood’s know-how improvement and the way vital has this been in advancing your technique?

With the assist of Cisco, Fairfood has strengthened its farmer-centric traceability answer that at the moment permits 46 corporations to indicate precisely the place merchandise come from and share proof for model guarantees publicly, whereas bettering farmers’ incomes. The partnership additionally allowed us to develop a data-secure NFC (Close to Area Communication) card system together with a cell app for first patrons, that allows the event of monetary monitor data for farmers and group members who should not have 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 approved customers.

Within the markets Fairfood operates in, this idea shifts the ability again to farmers and group members, permitting them to confirm that funds meant for them are acquired, whereas making certain they continue to be answerable for their very own knowledge. It additionally opens up the chance to make use of these data for monetary inclusion for farmers that should not have a checking account. “We’re exploring methods wherein these digital monetary monitor 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 a number of potential and profit to each the unbanked farmers and monetary establishments”.

What are a few of Fairfood’s accomplishments/wins within the trade so 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 carried out its farmer-centric traceability answer 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 acquired. This system had two pathways of change: one aimed toward demonstrating the enterprise case for totally traceable nutmeg merchandise, and the opposite centered on showcasing the potential of incentives to assist structurally enhance funds to farmers. The case acquired highlighted within the report ‘In 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 operating 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 in the course of 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 greatest challenges Fairfood faces is to show the enterprise case for totally traceable merchandise, as a substitute 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 shoppers considering 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, client consciousness, and model belief. It takes time for individuals to essentially perceive the ability of farm-to-fork traceability, however we’re starting to make inroads.

One other problem is with laws. Up till a number of years in the past, there was an absence of laws round moral and sustainable provide chains. We at the moment are seeing constructive change on this space throughout governments in a number of nations and that is serving to us to select up steam in corporations the place sustainability was not beforehand mission-critical to them. A closing roadblock space is the dearth of knowledge, 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. Generally it’s ranging from scratch, however as we acquire knowledge via the Hint platform, we will facilitate actual change all through the availability chain and assist to make it possible for farmers are paid pretty for his or her merchandise.

How can shoppers assist Fairfood’s mission?

There are a number of methods shoppers might help with Fairfood’s mission in the direction of a sustainable meals system.

1. Schooling: Study what corporations are supporting moral and sustainable meals practices. Being an knowledgeable, accountable client might help to affect the system as an entire and result in actual, actionable change. Go to the Fairfood web site for extra info.
2. Take pleasure in coding? Get entangled: For the tech-savvy, one solution to become involved is to probably assist Fairfood via open-source software program contributions. Attain out to Derek at, derek@fairfood.org for extra particulars on how one can contribute on Hint cell.
3. Join Fairfood to future partnerships: Know of any native corporations desirous about bringing totally traceable merchandise to shoppers? Attain out to Peter at, peter@fairfood.org.

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