Peter Johnson
| Organization | Ayadee |
|---|---|
| Organization type | Private Sector (Commercial Companies) |
| Organization role |
Founder and CEO
|
| Country | El Salvador |
| Area of Expertise |
Blockchain based tools for humanitarian assistance and economic development, political and economic analysis of fragile states, multi-lateral development banking
|
This member participated in the following Forums
Forum E-consultation on ethical, legal and policy aspects of data sharing affecting farmers
Day 2: Desired scenarios for a future where data-driven agriculture is successfully adopted by smallholder farmers
Let's have a discussion offline on this... my email address is [email protected].
I agree 100% with the points that Lee has made here.
The ixo Foundation, based in Switzerland but with most of its current operations in South Africa, has tools that could achieve this kind of data collection. The pilot version of their protocol is being tested now, and so far much of the support for ixo has come from UNICEF.
I'm a volunteer ambassador of the ixo Foundation (www.ixo.foundation), and am happy to answer more questions on the specifics of how this can work.
This again where blockchain is of use... with a public blockchain network, data is encrypted, but is not stored centrally, and no one organization controls the data. I'd be happy to have a more detailed conversation on how this can work on a technical level, but the core point is that blockchain decentralizes control of the data.
On equity, the blockchain-based solution could create fairness where farmers have an incentive to share tehir data. Farmers could be granted digital "tokens" when they submit data, and within this ecosystem they can spend those tokens to buy crop data from the organization(s) managing/collecting the data. In that way, there is an incentive structure by which smallholder farmers get a clear benefit of reporting their individual data by having access to the larger pool of data that has been collected.
From the farmer's perspective, this could be as simple as an App to download onto their phone, or if they don't have a smartphone themselves, onto that of someone in the community. The farmers themselves wouldn't need to understand anything about how blockchain works or what is happening in the background, just that they submit their own farm's data, and then are allowed access to view aggregate data of all other agricultural information that is relevant and collected by that data aggregator.
Day 1: Major challenges from a policy legal and ethical perspective, preventing smallholder farmers benefiting from data sharing
Smallhoilder farmers may not have access to crop insurance, and if they do, they may have trouble getting insurance companies to pay when crops fail.
Sensors could be placed relatively inexpensively that measure rainfall, and smart contracts (blockchain) could be used to make payouts automatic if in a given month a set level of rainfall that is necessary for a succesful harvest is not met. Thus the farmer does not have to chase the insurance company and fight a long process to be paid, and the insurance company does not have to send claims specialists to verify the condition of the crop.
Structures could be created within the blockchain to allow farmers to submit data, even via SMS, that would then be pooled and stored on the blockchain, and made shareable to all who contributed (or could be open to all in general) giving small farmers a tool to pool their data and see the big picture that they often do not have access to.
The grocer or milkman you probably have enough money to pay directly, you are not asking them to extend credit to you for a bottle of milk or a few bananas. And yes, banks can also be bad at judging risk, but at least if banks have data on smallholders, they have something to assess, and are more likely to consider extending credit to them than if they have no data at all.
Access to bank accounts for smallholders
Cell phone based apps could be used to use cryptocurrencies to send an receive money even when the nearest branch-bank is far away. The technology already exists that would allow a farmer to go to a local shop where the shopkeeper is an agent of the bank. On a basic android-based cell phone with camera they can do take a picture of their eye (an iris-scan, much less scary than that phrase sounds) to verify who they are, and without having to memorize any long crypto account number their identity is verified, and they can receive funds sent via a cryptocurrency account. More low tech, if they have a traditional account with a brick-an-mortar bank, no cryptocurrency need be involved, they just access their bank account via this iris-scan ID, and withdraw their funds, with the local shopkeeper recording the transaction. Happy to give more technical details on how this works.
Although m-pesa offers a similar value proposition and may not be worth replacing where it is used over telecom networks, this is a technological leapfrog that could be extremely helpful in places where farmers have no access to banking services.
Again, this builds a financial transaction history which could be helpful to smallholders who have no credit/financial history to show when they are seeking to access finance to buy seed and pay their bills till the harvest comes in.
Small farmers also often lack a verifiable credit history, making it difficult to get loans from financial institutions, and sometimes forcing them to accept far higher than market rate loans in the time when they are waiting for the harvest.
Through use of the blockchain, a record of the crops they have grown, payments made and received, etc. could give them a "digital" record, whether stored in the blockchain or by other means, which could give lenders a record to look at when considering loans.
Certain cryptocurrencies are even well equipped for micropayments, so farmers could build up a transaction history even for small payments at a local shop.