Farm data and analysis at the fingertips of cooperatives, smallholders and customers

• For cooperatives and farmer groups: commercial management services to better manage stock, creditor and debtor levels
• For smallholders: detailed farm mapping for more tailored support including individual farm management plans, text advice and mobile payment wallets
• For customers: improved transparency, ‘geo-tagging’ and intervention insight reduces supply chain risk and improves funding efficiency
• Implemented across 8 products, 21 countries and 9 languages
• Aiming to reach 500,000 Olam farmers by 2020

Recent enhancements to the Olam Farmer Information System (OFIS) mean that 100,000 smallholder farmers now benefit from access to detailed information about their farms and many of their international customers now have unparalleled visibility into the production of emerging market crops like cashew and coffee. Each farm has been mapped and surveyed via an Android app with the uploaded data harnessed to provide tailored support for smallholders and more precise details to customers who need to make critical choices about financial interventions, such as agri-training, school or healthcare infrastructure.

While technology has made advances in supporting smallholders, as well as supply chain transparency, OFIS Director Simon Brayn-Smith emphasises the platform’s capability in helping all participants in the supply chain:

“You have to remember that while big data usage is commonplace among large-scale farms, our field officers are working in some of the world’s most isolated places. With the OFIS technology they have been able to survey and record, on the spot, thousands of farms, the surrounding landscape, as well as the farmer’s social circumstances. This gives the farmers, Olam and our customers greater insight to tackle issues from poor yields to climate change and child labour. And by ‘GeoTagging’ each bag of produce we can trace it from farm to fork, providing assurance to end users on product provenance.”

Facilitating enterprise management

The OFIS platform has been designed to build capacity from the ground up and allows farmer groups and cooperatives to manage their stock levels and keep an eye on creditor and debtor positions. It also gives them detailed reports about their business activities including a way to prove provenance of a product which in turn helps them access traceability premiums.