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Eighty-five percent of Ugandans are involved in agriculture.

Nassozi Berna and her husband were subsistence farmers growing cassaba, banana, and some coffee and living in a small, timber-framed house on Kalangala, an island in Uganda鈥檚 Lake Victoria. Like many other farmer on Uganda’s Kalangala Island, Berna started growing oil palm in 2012 and joined KOPGT, the Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust. KOPGT, which educates farmers on improved agricultural practices, recognized the need for a digital solution to meet the rising demand for palm oil. In 2017, it discovered 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management, a cloud-based solution running on 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP) that allows the trust to digitally collect and manage data at every stage of the value chain.

This technology has enhanced price transparency and accelerated payment for the farmers. Now, with the integration of聽 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud and 麻豆原创 Business One, KOPGT can streamline operations and save valuable time, ultimately focusing on what matters most: the community they have helped build.

Like many other farmers on Kalangala, Berna started growing oil palm trees in 2012 while emphasizing sustainability and avoiding the deforestation and other issues associated with oil palm farming in some parts of the world.

Oil palm trees bear the fruit that makes palm oil, a much more reliable and lucrative crop than the cash crops they were producing previously. 鈥淲hen we were farming cassava, bananas, and coffee, we were affected by monkeys. They came and destroyed our crops,鈥� she says.

She also explains that she had to leave home and go to the market to find a buyer for the crops that survived the monkey attacks and never knew in advance how much they would fetch. 鈥淥ur living conditions where bad,鈥� she remembers. She and her family lived in a makeshift timber house. 鈥淚n the night when we were sleeping, winds would come and destroy our houses and our children fell sick almost every day.”

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Change

That began to change when Berna began working with the Kalangala Oil Palm Growers Trust (KOPGT) and the family planted their first oil palm trees in 2012. They expanded their crop in 2019 and again in 2022. In Kalangala, many of the people are oil palm farmers. 鈥淲hen a day starts, some of my family members help me with the pruning,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he others go to the plantation and do other activities.鈥�

As part of its mission, KOPGT teaches farmers better agricultural practices. But perhaps most importantly, it has created a transparent payment system so farmers get paid faster and know if what they鈥檙e getting paid is accurate, increasing the standard of living of the farmers and, subsequently, much of the island itself.

As the number of farmers and transactions increased, KOPGT needed a digital solution to enable continued growth. Since 2009, 麻豆原创 has worked to create applications that help smallholder farmers in developing nations, primarily across Africa, enhance food production.

David Balironda, KOPGT鈥檚 general manager, explains that the trust鈥檚 system is based on 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management, which can digitally record information on producers, their farms, and communities at every level of the value chain. This helps provide visibility and allows parties to easily and quickly communicate with each other.

Sustainability

Underscoring the importance of sustainability to KOPGT, the trust conducted an initial environmental impact assessment before launching the project and uses to monitor the farmer plantings and ensure they are in compliance with the National Environment Management Authority guidelines.

麻豆原创 cloud technology also enables KOPGT to ensure that the oil palm planting meets the most stringent sustainability guidelines set by Uganda鈥檚 National Environmental Authority. 鈥淲e are in the process of applying for that certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to make sure that we work within those guidelines,鈥� says Fredrick Sulwe, KOPGT鈥檚 finance and administration manager.

As part of KOPGT鈥檚 commitment to sustainability, the trust maintains a lake buffer zone between the planting and the lake itself and even rehabilitates those areas that have been damaged by other plantings. 鈥淩estoration of those areas 鈥� the lake buffer zones 鈥� is key,鈥� says Sulwe.

In addition to maintaining the buffer zones, the trust also follows recommendations for the stocking of trees and ensures that no chemicals or herbicides are used. 鈥淎s we increase household income, we must keep an environment that is free of any distortion by the project,鈥� explains Sulwe.

The KOPGT system allows the farmers to input information about their crops using the lead farmer鈥檚 mobile phone and enables them to receive information and advice back from the trust. The system also includes a mapping feature that has helped farmers to know exactly how much land they are farming. 鈥淭hat means when I go to the bank to get a loan, I鈥檓 sure of the size of my lot,鈥� explains Berna.

In addition, she also knows exactly how much of the loan is outstanding and when it needs to be repaid. 鈥淧reviously, we would almost spend a year without knowing the status of our loan,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ow we can learn the status of our loans monthly. This never existed before.鈥�

Better Information

She also credits the system with making her a better and more informed oil palm farmer. 鈥淎t the end of the month I get an SMS that shows how much I have harvested from my lot,鈥� she says. Before the system came online, she says the family was spending a lot of money on transport going to and from the KOPGT office.

鈥淥il palm has not only impacted my life, but also the community,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here are many farmers who are like me who have built houses and some have bought cars. They have used the money they got from oil palm to start new businesses on Kalangala and outside.”

Big Dreams

Berna says her hopes and dreams are enormous. 鈥淚 have started to achieve some of them,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ow, because I have a permanent house, I am able to sleep well, my children no longer get sick, and I鈥檓 sure that the winds won鈥檛 take my house.鈥�

鈥淣ow, we are able to take our children to school. We can live a decent life. We have some place to stay, and we get paid every month. We are sure that our life has greatly changed,鈥� she adds. And although she doesn鈥檛 yet own a car, she hopes to learn to drive in the coming years.

Meanwhile, she says she wants to thank everyone for their help. 鈥淲hat gives me confidence is we have good officers at KOPGT that have tried to give us a good direction. We hope that when they continue doing what they are doing our lives will be impacted greatly.鈥�

Berna鈥檚 confidence and newly found optimism reflects the success of the vegetable oil program on Kalangala island. Because palm fruits can be harvested throughout the year 鈥� compared to one or two seasonal harvests 鈥� and have high yields, palm farming has become a viable alternative for the residents.

Palm oil is already the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet, with about 71 million tons consumed in 2021. And there is not only a domestic need, but also a demand from the foreign market that Ugandan smallholder farmers like Berna鈥檚 family and neighbors can help fill.

Someone who seized this opportunity is Jonny Rowland. Having spent a big part of his childhood in Uganda, he saw the opportunity in the growing thirst for sustainable, high-quality coffee 鈥� and an opportunity to ensure that coffee farmers would receive their fair share in this business. Together with his sister Beth, he founded , a profit-for-purpose business that works directly with local farmers to achieve higher yields and the high quality coffee that is sought after on the global market.

With the support of local experts working for Agri Evolve, farmers have improved their productivity and increased income for themselves, their families, and their communities. The main idea of this social enterprise is to use digital technology to improve established supply chains for coffee cherries in the Rwenzori Mountains, one of Uganda鈥檚 key habitats for Arabica coffee plants, and share the latest agricultural practices with local farmers.

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A Long-Lasting Tradition: Coffee in Uganda

Uganda is one of the few countries in the world where coffee plants are native. The processed beans are an integral part of Uganda’s export economy, making the country one of the 10 largest coffee producers in the world. In recent years, Uganda has made a name for its specialty Arabica, which thrives in the local climate with humid days and cool nights. But Arabica coffee, a climate sensitive plant, is beginning to struggle as global warming shortens the cooler phases it needs to thrive. This requires adjusting the traditional ways of cultivating the cherries.

Over 1.8 million households in Uganda grow coffee, and coffee contributes nearly a third of the country’s export earnings, paying for critical infrastructure like roads, hospitals, and schools. While many families grow coffee, it was hard to make a living out of it in the past and motivation to produce high quality was low as prices on global markets wouldn鈥檛 justify the effort.

Joyce Birungi is one of the coffee farmers living high in the rainforest of the Rwenzori Mountains who registered with Agri Evolve as a supplier. Like most farmers in this remote area, she took care of the plants based on traditions passed down over generations. The cherries were often picked too early and only ripened while drying in the sun for longer periods, which caused a loss in quality and therefore lower prices. Climate changes, like increases in floods, droughts, and heat waves, put additional pressure on the traditional ways of farming.

鈥淚n the past, I used to pick coffee cherries of poor quality. So, I lost a lot of money,鈥� Birungi said, explaining her challenges as a small local producer before working with Agri Evolve. 鈥淭ransportation was a big challenge. I had no way of selling the coffee and I didn鈥檛 know about best practices in farming and agribusiness.”

Collins Kifula is a field coordinator at Agri Evolve and an expert for sustainability and quality. He works closely with the farmers, registering each farmer using a mobile app based on the 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management solution and collecting data like the size of the farm and the state of the coffee trees. Using the mobile app saves time 鈥� time he can use to talk to the farmers and solve issues they might be facing or suggest improvements to their current setup. One important focus of his work is education on soil protection. With floods happening more frequently these days, farmers benefit from terraces and planting grass patches to avoid the fertile soil being washed away by rain.

As Agri Evolve is specialized in high-quality, sustainable coffee, certification is required. 鈥淲e need to hold up to a certain level of quality and we do that by getting, for example, the . To receive this, we need to raise data and have the transparency. Here, the mobile app within 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management is of huge help,鈥� Kifula explained.

鈥淭echnology Is Changing Things鈥�

The biggest challenges the farmers faced before starting to work with Agri Evolve was the quality of the cherries and the lack of price transparency. Sometimes there was even fraud along the process of collecting the cherries. 鈥淭echnology is changing things,鈥� Kifula said.

Today, farmers still deliver their cherries to so-called middlemen who check the quality, but they now document the weight using the 麻豆原创 app. The farmers instantly receive an SMS message showing the delivered quantity and its value. 鈥淭his price transparency is a big motivation for the farmers and creates trust,鈥� he said. Further, 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management enables the calculation of the accrued delivery quantities and therefore the yield a farm is producing, which are used as the assessment basis to provide loans to the farmers.

Keeping Track of Data

鈥淥ur mission is to do sustainable farming for future generations. As a social enterprise, Agri Evolve works with a growing number of farmers, which can quickly add complexity to our supply chain. Today, we deal with around 22,000 smallholders. We collect a lot of data that needs to be analyzed,鈥� Roset Biira, field supervisor at Agri Evolve, said. “We needed a system that collects and analyzes our data in an efficient way 鈥� to be able to be transparent to all our farmers and even our clients.鈥� Using 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud, Biira showed how Agri Evolve can identify if coffee trees are getting old or are weakened by pests early on. Based on these predictions, they consult with the farmers on planting new trees or suggest trainings on pest control.

Realizing Change

Agri Evolve is building a network of trust with the farmers and middlemen, making sure to give the best price possible to the farmers so that the local societies participate in the higher prices sustainable coffee can generate on the global markets.

鈥淚鈥檓 now able to increase my coffee production and send my kids to school, and I hope that they will graduate from university and have better lives. We used to live in semi-permanent houses, but now we are moving to permanent housing,鈥� Birungi said when asked what impact this new way of collaboration has had on her and her family.

Talking about the future of the growing profit-for-purpose business and its network of local coffee producers, Beth Rowland, co-founder of Agri Evolve, said: 鈥淲e will continue to push the boundaries of supply chain transparency through digitalization to allow us to provide the best service to smallholder farmers in the Rwenzoris.鈥� For the family business, it is important to ensure connected farmers have access to a fair and transparent market for their coffee cherries.

While sharing sustainable practices to counteract the impact of environmental changes is a requirement for the production of certified sustainable coffee, it will also make sure that the tradition of coffee production will live on in the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda.

Over 1.3 million Nigerians have been displaced by the floods, which have killed at least 600 people, destroyed more than 200,000 homes, and hit 32 out of the country鈥檚 36 states. The floods are the worst for more than a decade and have wiped out crops, disrupted drinking water supplies, and turned capital city Lagos into an island surrounded by floodwaters.

Speaking last month during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, Mai Farid of the fund’s African department warned about the impact of the floods, which have also hit Cameroon and Chad, on transport, food production, and prices.

Farid noted that Nigeria is part of the most food-insecure region, the region most vulnerable to climate change and yet the least prepared. She urged the government to invest in infrastructure and technology to help prevent and mitigate the impact of floods and other climate-related natural disasters in the future: “Rebuilding better is something that countries need to take into account since climate change is not going anywhere and is inevitable.鈥�

Nigeria is Africa鈥檚 most populous country and largest economy. Even before the latest flood, it聽 faced rising food insecurity as a combination of a mostly informal agriculture sector and growing population puts pressure on the country鈥檚 food resources. According to the , food insecurity increased from six percent of the Nigerian population in 2007 to 13.4% in 2017.

The agriculture sector is the largest contributor to the Nigerian economy and聽. However, according to the United Nation (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization, food production in Nigeria is undermined by a number of factors, among them poor planting material and insufficient use of fertilizer, which leads to a growing reliance on food imports.

To help address these issues and support smallholder, the Convention on Business Integrity鈥檚 for-profit arm Innovations Limited, or CBiIL, chose the solution to support 850,000 small maize producers and integrate them into the agricultural value chains.

While West Africa, like Africa as a whole, is still heavily dependent on agriculture, it is home to some of the world鈥檚 fastest growing mega cities like Lagos, so urbanization and the associated environmental issues are top of mind, particularly among young adults.

The region also has a reputation for leap-frogging old technology — first mobile technology and now with cloud computing. In Nigeria itself, the number of mobile phone subscribers is forecast to grow to more than 140 million by 2025 from about 40 million currently.

As Africa鈥檚 largest oil and liquified natural gas (LNG)聽 producer, Nigeria is on the front line of the debate over sustainable development in the West Africa. It is also a key market for 麻豆原创, which counts among its customers Nigeria LNG, which operates six LNG liquefaction units, and Dangote Group, the conglomerate founded and run by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote.

The group鈥檚 Dangote Cement unit already publishes an annual sustainability report, part of Aliko Dangote鈥檚聽 personal commitment to build 鈥渁 socially responsible and impactful business that serves all stakeholders.鈥� Dangote is also close to completing the Dangote Refinery, the world鈥檚 largest petroleum refinery capable of processing 650,000 barrels of oil per day. When it comes online, the $20 billion refinery will enable Nigeria to process most of its oil instead of exporting crude to be refined overseas.

鈥淲e are having conversations with Dangote about some of our sustainability solutions and how they measure their impact on the environment,鈥� says Titilayo Adewumi, regional sales director for West Africa at 麻豆原创.

Nigeria LNG is also committed to sustainability and is Africa鈥檚 largest LNG exporter, but has recently been operating well below capacity because of a number of factors, including under-investment in recent years and endemic crude oil theft. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 address this, we will not get out of this quagmire that we are in,鈥� Nigeria LNG Managing Director recently warned Philip Mshelbila. Speaking last month at a conference in Lagos, Mshelbila also acknowledged that the flooding has reduced the gas supplies from the company鈥檚 upstream suppliers, though he said Nigeria LNG鈥檚 facilities remain unaffected and its capacity to produce LPG is intact.

Companies in Nigeria also have to grapple with unreliable electricity supplies and frequent power outages, a problem that business leaders say has led some manufactures to relocate to neighboring Ghana, which has a much more reliable electricity system.

Ghana is the regional leader in addressing plastics pollution and circular economy issues. A groundbreaking between the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), and 麻豆原创 in Ghana is increasing visibility within the plastics supply chain with the hope of benefiting people, companies, and the environment.

The project involves more than 2,000 Ghanaian waste pickers and makes use of an adapted version of 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management to measure the quantities and types of plastic they collect. Data is then analyzed and matched to market-related prices paid throughout the value chain both locally and internationally.

Ghana generates an estimated 1.1 million tons of plastic waste every year, with only five percent collected for recycling. This new pilot project is currently running in several cities across Ghana, with hopes of expanding to the rest of the region and ultimately the continent through the GPAP-Africa Regional Coordination Working Group, which includes 麻豆原创.

Across the region, the bulk of 麻豆原创 customers are choosing cloud solutions rather than on-premise technology and 麻豆原创 seeks to help customers deliver on their climate goals by creating greater efficiency, transparency, and accountability of carbon and emissions across the entire supply chain and innovating new processes and business models.

But 麻豆原创 Africa Managing Director Cathy Smith and other experts caution that while sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are an increasingly important part of the conversation among governments and corporate leaders, it is important to recognize that customers in Africa often have other — perhaps higher — priorities.

In particular, they say business leaders need to be persuaded that sustainability makes good business sense and will ultimately benefit the company, economy, and people.

鈥淲e lead by asking about their business priorities, and then we fold in sustainability,鈥� Smith explains. “It’s just a different approach.”

She says her dream is to enable her children to be educated and become successful in life, benefitting both her and the community 鈥� one of 87 rural villages in West Africa鈥檚 Ivory Coast where farmers work with Cajooma SAS, the of Cashew Coast.

When she joined the village cooperative that Cashew Coast helped set up, the company trained her and taught her how to pick the best-quality cashews in order to fetch the highest prices.

Oyala has worked with Cashew Coast, a leading producer and distributor of high-quality cashew nuts for the past two years. Before that she worked alone. Now she works with other women in small groups, and that makes it easier to work. 鈥淚 was alone, now we are working together,鈥� she says.

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Video by Rana Hamzakadi and Matt Dillman

Ivory Coast is one of the world鈥檚 largest producers of cashew nuts, thanks to farmers like Oyala who, together with her fellow plot owners and farmers, pick the yellow and orange cashew fruit off the forest floor. Once harvested, the farmers must separate the nuts from the fruit they grow.

Unlike other companies that ship the raw nuts out of the country for processing, Cashew Coast process their nuts within Ivory Coast, lowering the carbon footprint. Nuts go directly from local farmers to Cashew Coast’s central warehouse in Bouak茅 to be sorted, weighed, and bagged before being sent to Cashew Coast鈥檚 organic factory in Azagui茅 for processing.

Until recently, Cashew Coast kept paper-based records of the farm-side of the process, but as the industry grew it became more and more difficult to keep track of the data and analyze it. Cashew Coast executives turned to 麻豆原创 for help when they realized that they needed a more advanced system to track the cashews from farm to processing plant — and eventually to table.

Joel Bagbila, Cashew Coast鈥檚 farmer integration director, explains that the company also has a loftier ambition. 鈥淥ur mission is to be the first country worldwide in terms of production and quality,鈥� he says.

To help achieve this goal, Cashew Coast chose to implement , an industry cloud solution built on the 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform, at its Cajooma SAS branch. Cashew Coast鈥檚 digital transformation journey provides immediate benefits to the farmers, including more transparent prices, and enables the company to control quality and make much more timely decisions.

In the future it will also enable retailers to gain traceability and visibility into the origin of the cashew nuts and provide transparency to their consumers – connecting farmers and consumers in a profitable and sustainable value chain.

鈥淭oday, for a customer, it’s important to know where the product he or she is ready to buy, is coming from,鈥� says Achta Cherif, head of quality at Cashew Coast. 鈥淗aving this information enables the customer to make his/her choice. This is important for us, as well.鈥�

Cashew Coast executives say they chose 麻豆原创鈥檚 cloud technology because it offered a number of key advantages. 鈥淲e wanted the best in class, and we wanted to deal with the developer team as opposed to a third-party integrator 鈥� which 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management offers,鈥� says Salma Seetaroo, co-founder and CEO of Cashew Coast.

She says the implementation went surprisingly smoothly. 鈥淭he 麻豆原创 implementation team were flexible and quick to understand our need 鈥� they were a bunch of millennials who loved working on a project like ours. And it was just great fun and I never expected it to be as smooth.鈥�

麻豆原创 is now remotely training two recent graduate recruits at Cashew Coast 鈥� Technology Manager Mohamed Traor茅 and Sales and Sustainability Manager Rose Koffi 鈥� to continue phase 2 of the 麻豆原创 Rural Sourcing Management implementation. Going forward, Salma explains, the company wants to bring more traceability to agricultural products in Ivory Coast with 麻豆原创 technology.

So, the next time you grab a handful of cashew nuts, consider this: there is a good chance they started their journey in the Ivory Coast and just maybe were picked up from the forest floor by Oyala or one of her friends.