Pieter Louw
| Organization | Adaptogether |
|---|---|
| Organization type | Private Sector (Commercial Companies) |
| Country | Spain |
With a proven track record of more than 20 years of leadership and innovation in the sustainability industry, Adaptogether is a sustainability consultancy firm, providing advice to businesses and organizations in agriculture and the food industry to help them develop more sustainable supply chains that are fit for the future. Our experience in this industry is broad (from assurance system development, to service development around climate change issues to senior management strategy accross more than 20 different commodity categories), deep (all three partners were Director level leaders in the industry for many years) and global (we have extensive experience in working on all continents and we speak a range of languages fluently that allows us to interact on a senior level almost anywhere).
This member participated in the following Forums
Forum Communication for Development, community media and ICTs for family farming and rural development
Question 1 (opens 22 September)
We are a social business using technology to open the channels of communication between smallholder farmers and other supply chain actors. Based on our experience in the food industry, we firmly believe that if the end buyers of products grown by smallholders know more about farmers, a stronger bridge will develop in the value chain, a deeper understanding of risk will be developed and more targeted investment in strengthening sustainable smallholder farming will emerge.
One of the ways that communication and technology can be used to empower farmers is to begin to use it to introduce brands and retailers to the farmers who grow the crops that feed the supply chain. Perhaps the most effective way to do this is by giving the farmers a voice that can be heard by the other supply chain actors. The solution we arrived at was to use a downloadable smart phone app to conduct very short and simple surveys among farmers in various farming communities in the Global South. The survey which we are currently testing in Peru has 13 questions around key life areas, specifically finance, health, education and general well-being.
From a business perspective, knowing who your suppliers are should be considered vital information, as these are the people who 'feed' your supply chain. And, through regular monitoring of smallholders the supply chain brands and retailers can get an early indications about the changing perspectives of farmers. With this win-win, maybe we can move toward more sustainable supply chains – something that we all need.
The challenge we currently face is the cost of conducting the surveys. The primary obstacle we face is the cost of surveying. We continue to look for better technological solutions to our communications challenge, but so far we are still employing an individual to go from farm to farm. In order to grow the concept we need to find a more cost-effective way to gather data.