Jimma Ethiopia Coffee Supply Chain Solution
Location: Jimma, Ethiopia
Partners: World Food Programme and GIZ
Funder: USAID
Funding Mechanism: LASER (Long-term Assistance and Services for Research) PULSE (Partners for University-Led Solutions Engine)
Funder: Australia Direct Aid Program (Ghana)
COMMODITY
Coffee
DURATION
April 2019 to now
USERS
240 farmers
SOLUTION
AgUnity App V.3
KEY INDUSTRY FACT
There are 2.24 million coffee farmers in Ethiopia (Enveritas).
COMMODITY
Cocoa
DURATION
9 months
PROJECT TYPE/STATUS
Pilot/Live
VALUE
€60,000
USERS
25 (Farmers, processors, importers)
SOLUTION
T-Tag Traceability Devices
Smartphone & Super App
KEY INDUSTRY FACT
40 to 50 million people worldwide depend on the cocoa industry as their source of income.
Challenges we solve
Smallholder farmers rarely have access to equipment to assist in the planting, growing, and harvesting of their crops, with almost all tasks being undertaken labor-intensively by hand. This significantly restricts market access, relying on local middlemen who offer disproportionately below-market prices for their crops.
The majority of these farmers also have no access to financing, preventing them from purchasing better quality seedlings or renting farming machinery. Additionally, farmers have limited access to information on best farming practices or how to maximize their land's productivity.
Objectives
This project's objective is to establish transparency in the coffee supply chain.
- Increased awareness of trust and transparency between participating farmers and the cooperatives.
- Help farmers gain bargaining power based on records stored in the AgUnity App.
- Help track the provenance of agricultural produce purchased from farmers for all parties in the coffee value chain.
- Obtain financial literacy for the farmers.
- By solving the issue of a lack of trust and cooperation, this project aims to empower smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty and enable a sustainable pathway to financial inclusion.
Project Scope
"We really want to learn new technology on how to plant and take care of coffee plants, ..., and also want to buy bags that could maintain red cherries quality"
"It's really difficult to get information from our buyer; we are not sure why the payment is delayed. I wish I could talk to the owner directly." Due to unclear information and previous delayed payments, many farmers express their distrust toward the buyer and wish for more transparent communication.
AgUnity started by conducting meetings with country partners to establish process maps, key stakeholders, product users, and other supply chain information. Site visits were undertaken to identify any context-specific issues.
During the development phase, AgUnity set up a cloud platform secured in Blockchain, loaded relevant updates to the AgUnity App, and assigned a device to each actor in the supply chain. Training manuals for the products were developed and distributed during this phase.
Where required, assistance was provided to farmers and processors in the process of finding buyers, communicating supply chain, and implementing quality assurance improvements, which in turn returned higher prices for the commodity.
Outcomes
- User Satisfaction
"This app is simple enough; with little training, farmers will be able to use it," feedback from cooperative officers during our training session. - User Satisfaction
"We will not lose our receipts anymore," female farmers explain the benefit of the app from their perspective. - User Satisfaction
"We can save our money here," male farmers shared that they feel if they use this app, they can decide not to cash out and therefore save their money in the app. - Willingness to pay after 4 months of usage
During the harvest implementation, farmers attested that they could and would buy quality smartphones (tagged for $75) and would pay a subscription fee of 400 Birr a year (amounting to more than $1.1/month). Subscription and phone installments are to be paid during the yearly harvest time. - Willingness to pay as of February 2021
AgUnity has now collected the 1st cash payments for the phones and subscriptions from 58 of the 59 farmers (98%) from Hunda Olii Cooperative in the Jimma region.
Testimonials
Tahir Aba Biya
Chairman of Kotta coffee producer primary cooperative union in Gomma wereda, Jimma zone in Oromia regional state.
"We thank AgUnity for providing our member farmers with mobile phones with the AgUnity App and new technology. This technology transfer helps us to improve our living standard through using the App, substituting paper receipts during coffee transactions, which we previously used. The mobile phone records transactions and avoids the missing and damaging of paper receipts. Now, the transaction of coffee will be recorded on the mobile phone with the help of the AgUnity App. The phone also has learning, saving, and shopping features, which are very useful to us. Again, we thank the entire AgUnity team."
Zara Aba Sadi
Member of Kadamai primary cooperative union.
"This mobile phone provided to us by AgUnity is very important for us. We can use the phone for coffee transactions, shopping, learning, and saving. In the future, we will use it more, and I also request that AgUnity provide the remaining cooperative members with the same phones to equally share the benefits of the AgUnity app on the phones. Again, we thank AgUnity for sending us the phones."