AfricaTradeApp, a system developed by APPSolve in conjunction with USAID and Southern Africa Trade Hub, has just been announced as the winner of Oracle's Sustainability Innovation award 2015, Maureen Grosvenor, Chief Strategy Officer at APPSolve, confirmed. "This is a huge honour for us and comes a day after we went live in Zambia. Together with Mozambique, the two countries are both using this system to manage warehouse receipts helping farmers, business and banks connect seamlessly".
The Trade Hub implemented the Warehouse Receipts System, to assist farmers in maximizing their sales and revenues of their products, as well as providing training and incentives to reduce post-harvest losses.
The Trade Hub subcontracted APPSolve to provide the ICT and database architecture for the Warehouse Receipts System. APPSolve nominated the Trade Hub for the Sustainability Innovation Award for its innovative and sustainable use of the Oracle XE Database and Oracle Application Express systems.
One of the main objectives of the Trade Hub is to provide food security and production in the Southern Africa region. For decades smallholder farmers have had no proper storage facilities once they have harvested their product. Research has proven that these farmers suffered up to 30% post-harvest losses due to inadequate storage facilities. Through the Warehouse Receipt System (WRS), it is now possible for professional warehousing to be opened for the smallholder storage.
There are a number of issues that are addressed and benefits that have been realised from the Warehouse Receipting System.
First, opening up professional warehouse facilities for the smallholder farmers means that they no longer have the need to build elementary storage facilities. These facilities were built by cutting down trees thereby destroying the natural environment.
Secondly, not only did the older storage facilities destroy the natural environment but they were also inadequate in terms of preserving the grain that was stored. This led to major stock losses, estimated at 30% of total crop yield. Such high losses have contributed significantly to the overall state of food and nutrition insecurity in Mozambique and Zambia.
There is a significant lack of institutions that train Post-Harvest Management service providers (such as warehouses). The public sector has not put in place any strict quality control measures for grains entering the formal and informal markets, which is reinforced by the lack of capacity of farmers to access finance, poor accessibility of construction materials, poor roads, and weak marketing channels.
Lastly, the professional warehouse facilities enable smallholder farmers to sell their crops in a central location which increases the time they have to farm and ensures that stock losses are minimal. This will ensure a more sustainable future for these farmers.
Video : https://youtu.be/PdbN2Gh2otU
Share
Editorial contacts