Data and the small scale farmer conundrum in Africa

The age-old question of how to transform our small scale farmers into thriving commercial farmers or to farmers growing for the market, earning incomes that can transform farming families and communities is a complex one.

One that governments, development partners, private companies, and individual farmers grapple with every day.

It is complex because farming in Africa has many moving parts which often cannot all be controlled by the small scale farmer or one stakeholder in isolation. Sometimes, it just cannot make economic sense to try to solve it in the current way it’s being solved.

However, we can’t run away from the problem.

Farmers need good and ready markets, available arable preferably fertile land, quality inputs, extension support and training on good agriculture practices. Ideally if small scale farmers were able to acquire all the above, then they would improve their chance of success. However, this is mostly beyond them because the problem of financing often stands in the way.

We have to apply innovative, scalable, affordable solutions can put these capabilities in the hands of the small scale farmer.

The Importance of Data

Whenever we speak about data, many people think about expensive complex technologies.

Data is facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.

A farmer needs accurate data to make important business decisions.

Today farmers mainly depend on experience handed down generations, farm experts or advice from other farmers mainly. All these three sources of information are very valuable but are not enough and are sometimes very inaccurate.

For example, a farmer needs accurate weather data to know when or even if to plant, in the first place. They need accurate data about their inputs and outputs in order to check the financial health of their farm, all the time and to know with certainty if and why the farm business is not profitable or even it makes business sense to produce whatever they want to produce in the first place.

If they going to irrigate, spray or fertilize, they need accurate data of how much nutrients are available or lacking and what quantity to supplement, what amount of water is needed by their crops or livestock or if it even makes economic sense to control a disease or pest through spraying or any other means.

How do we find innovative ways of delivering this data and information into the hands of the farmer, in a simple, understandable and actionable format?

Financing Farmers

With time I have to realize why bankers fear to fund agriculture especially by small scale farmers. First we have to be clear that the business of banking is financing transparent, measurable businesses. Without access to accurate data, it’s hard to finance agriculture unless if it’s based on collateral or market contracts.

Instead of pushing banks to increase the ratio of agriculture lending, we need to focus more on helping the farmer to be bankable by mitigating the many existing risks and helping to lower the cost of processing, dispatching loans as well making repayments in a manner that it’s friendly to the farmer and more cost effective for the banker.

Also by providing readymade farmer data which shows how many farmers can produce how much from which region, then you solve partly the question of access to ready markets because off takers need that data to be able to sign market contracts with farmers.

Scaling Up Small Scale Farmers

Scale is huge problem to small scale farmers around Africa.

Scale is the size required size to solve the problem.

So in this case, to deliver services or goods to very many farmers with small plot sizes, dispersed in different rural areas with poor infrastructure, poor access to market information, little or no farm records is a huge challenge.

Some actors have solved that by grouping farmers into cooperatives associations to help them achieve scale and hence lower the average cost of serving one small scale farmer individually which works in many ways.

It solves the data problem and reduces the risk and cost of financing of an individual farmer.

At Shambapro, we are trying to approach that problem in a similar way but using a different angle where you can create scale by grouping farmers who do not necessarily live in the same location but produce the same product.

Value Addition

Small scale farmers in Africa primarily produce what the market requires in terms of quantity and quality for existing buyers.

In order to increase their incomes, value addition comes in different ways.

For example at cottage industry level, a farmer can produce their own cheese or yoghurt in their kitchen. It can also be a level of scale for produce like maize to provide critical infrastructure by government to alleviate a post-harvest challenge or by big agribusinesses to tap a ripe opportunity. In such cases, it does not make economic sense for s small scale farmer to invest in say, something like maize silos, but they can tap into a simple technology like PICS bags to save the day.

So at a national or regional level, it all boils down to getting accurate data of what can be added value to and how it can spur innovation or investment around it.

One Purpose Approach

For us to be able to help small scale farmers to produce in quantity and retain most of secondary value add in their pockets, we need a single spine system approach that looks at the bigger picture, coordinates existing or future initiatives in the specific value chains.

It should also collects, organize and disperse accurate data to actors in the most palatable way.

?It is not an easy challenge but it is doable if there is collaboration between governments, development partners, agribusinesses, agritech companies, farmer organizations.

Cherry-picking small problems and solving them in isolation leads to the farmer literary being overloaded with solutions taking more time than production itself.

Yet is should be the other way round, farmer solutions should enable them to focus more on the parts of their business that require most of their effort to get good results.

We have to start tackling the problem of commercialization and industrialization of our agriculture sector from the basic principles not from the approach of putting bandages where it is bleeding most and praying that everything will be fine.

And it all begins with collecting, organizing and disseminating accurate data in the easiest and most usable manner.

The writer is the CEO and Founder at Shambapro , an agritech startup that helps small scale farmers in Africa build and run viable and sustainable farm businesses.