SABI Magazine SABI Magazine June July 2017 | Page 31

ICT support
nations and meet the world’s need
for sustainable food production.
“By 2050 the world’s population
will
approach
10
billion
people. To sustain such a large
global population, the planet’s
agriculture output per acre
must double while at the same
time maintaining the highest
sustainability standards to meet
consumer demand. In fact, fair
trade sales are expected to triple
to USD25bn by 2020, creating a
huge challenge for governments,
retailers and large multinational
food producers.”
Meeting global
sustainable food demand
Based on available data, 500
million
smallholder
farmers
produce nearly 80% of all food
consumed in Asia and sub-
Saharan Africa. Agriculture is
the foremost employer in sub-
Saharan
Africa,
accounting
for nearly two-thirds of the
total labour force. However,
smallholder
farmers
often
lack access to technology and
financial services, limiting their
ability to grow their business and
increase productivity and output.
SAP Rural Sourcing Management
links farmers digitally to the
agriculture value chain through
a suite of mobile business
applications running on SAP
Cloud Platform that support
inclusive agricultural chains.
In December 2016, a strategic
alliance was announced between
the BMZ, GIZ, and several private
sector partners – including SAP
– working together to strengthen
smallholder
agricultural
businesses in Uganda.
This new strategic alliance will
focus on improving agricultural
productivity
and
quality,
supporting
and
monitoring
business processes of smallholder
farmers, and improving their
access to financial services.
How to ...
Participating SAP Rural Sourcing
Management customers can
access local implementation
services including master data
preparation, system configuration
and configuration of mobile
phones. With the support of
GIZ, producer organizations
can also access training for their
staff end-users.
Cashews
The strategic alliance is based on
previous successful partnerships
between SAP and GIZ starting
in 2009 with the African Cashew
Initiative, which aimed to improve
farmer incomes and livelihoods,
advance African cashew nut
quality and production, increase
local processing capacity and
improve market linkages along
the value chain.
The initial project saw a Rural
Sourcing Management prototype
implemented in Ghana and
Burkina Faso. Further initiatives
in Uganda, e.g. with the Uganda
Coffee Farmers Alliance and
an expanded African Cashew
Initiative in Ghana, secured
the involvement of a total of 17
supplier organizations across nine
countries. The projects involved
100,000 small-scale producers
growing six crops: cashew, shea,
coffee, cocoa, rice and sesame.
“The partnership between SAP
and BMZ effects a marked
improvement on the income
and livelihoods of small-scale
farmers by bringing transparency,
efficiency and accountability to
agricultural value chains. With the
central collection and monitoring
of real-time data, the initiative has
also opened the door to financial
services for African smallholder
farmers. With more than half
the African population involved
in agriculture, we are confident
that initiatives such as these
will bring about lasting positive
change to the lives of Africa’s
citizens,” says Parker.
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SABI | JUNE/JULY 2017
29
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