East Sepik, Papua New Guinea
Funder: United Nations Capital Development Fund
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)
Vanilla
12 months (started: Aprill 2022)
500 Vanilla Farmers (50% are women)
AgUnity V3 Application
The number of Vanilla farmers in rural areas of PNG is reliably estimated at 17,000. In addition, it is believed there are at least this many again who informally cultivate and sell vanilla as a secondary form of income. All these individuals are of low income and lacking in access to digital and financial services.
The farmers in East Sepik Province are located in remote area. Low digital literacy and lack of digital identity of those farmers as the last mile communities prevent them from record keeping and accessing benefits available through technology. Where such services exist, they are usually designed for individuals of higher digital literacy so are unsuitable or too expensive for the target.
Once farmers begin to transact using AgUnity solution, their transactions are recorded. This removes any disputes, improves trust and increases cooperation which leads to the improvement of output volume and quality.
In addition to that, AgUnity application is open to others digital service, for example, micro finance and healthcare. Those organizations will be offered the ability to distribute their services to a large, growing and previously unapproachable market segment.
The farmers in East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea begin to transact using AgUnity solution. Enabling record keeping and accessing benefits available through technology while removing any disputes, improves trust and increases cooperation which leads to the improvement of output volume and quality. In addition to that, AgUnity application is open to others digital service, such as micro finance and healthcare.
Scoping with Munul Organic Spices Limited is conducted at the end of March. The purpose is to understand Munul’s business and current circumstances; for example, the number of farmers and buyers, the value chain system, method of transaction.
Scoping with one of the buyers is conducted at the end of March. The purpose is to obtain information regarding the method of transaction, payment mechanism, average supply and quality of vanilla.
Our Field Officer visited Wewak and met the vanilla farmer in the middle of June. The purpose of field is visit to obtain in-depth information of business process of vanilla value chain and needs of farmers in the region.
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 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 quality assurance improvements, which in turn returned higher prices for the commodity.
