Please describe your proposed solution.
The problem I’m seeing is East Africa has
Coffee in EA has huge potential/ raw materials
Urban farmers or city dwelling people with farms upcountry struggle to keep up with activities on the farm.
Inefficient systems lead to loss of profit and decreased coffee output.
Systems in the EastAfricanCommunity are behind the rest of the world
The Coffee Industry has been around for a long time (129yrs), there may be resistance to new processes.
Limitations to how much information you could get from people already profiting from the current systems
Slow Adoption of new Ideas
Local conditions. Environmental conditions, Access to capital, access to business practices, social/ cultural practices.
EA coffee growers struggle to keep growing supporting older coffee businesses/ mature farms
The problem I’m seeing is East Africa has
- Coffee in EA has huge potential/ raw materials
- Urban farmers or city dwelling people with farms upcountry struggle to keep up with activities on the farm.
- Inefficient systems lead to loss of profit and decreased coffee output.
- Systems in the EastAfricanCommunity are behind the rest of the world
- The Coffee Industry has been around for a long time (129yrs), there may be resistance to new processes.
- Limitations to how much information you could get from people already profiting from the current systems
- Local conditions. Environmental conditions, Access to capital, access to business practices, social/ cultural practices.
- EA coffee growers struggle to keep growing supporting older coffee businesses/ mature farms
There are plenty of people who live in cities with have farms upcountry, who need to monitor the activities of their farm. Get farm managers to record info about their activity on the farm.
The solution is, leapfrog straight into the future. Trying to catch up with systems from the last century will leave Coffee Growth in EA trailing behind. Working with Cardano to create Smart Farming systems is an exciting opportunity.
We are Focusing on coffee because its been affected by climate change most prone to changing climate conditions.
[Put sensors in 3 Farms. One in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Farms near mountainous regions are rich in fertile soil. The farms around Mount Kenya, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Elgon have grown coffee successfully for years. Localised areas that grow coffee. Wifi is scarce, but the internet is available through bundles. Often these farms are distant from towns and cities. Farmers have access to smartphones but Data connectivity and Speed of internet are expensive.
Because we are in a rural environment we need to get reliable info, but there's problems with power, internet coverage etc, We need to get high speed connectivity into these regions as cheaply as possible - put a Starlink into our farm- connect environmental sensors to the Starlink and have a stake pool (Full node) running on a local machine that's all in one bundle.
Smart Farming DApp.
Use Starlink to solve connectivity issues in coffee growing areas across the equator. Run a smart farming information system in a decentralized way. Increasing the efficiency of food production. ]
Information can be used to improve the practices of a collection of farmers, increase productivity. If we build veracity into the data and stores it becomes easier to record the activity and what's actually going on on the farm. Allowing farmers to apply for the certificate of origin and allowing more coffee to be exported therefore increasing the prices that people can get. Possible to get volunteer carbon credits. Fits into UN sustainability goals. Farm workers will have an identity, Because they are certifying by submitting information into the farm information system.
The answer: Smart Farming. 4.0 green revolution in the field of agriculture combining agriculture methodologies with technology. Sensors & Actuators, Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics and Drones to achieve desired efficiencies of production with managed cost.
Connect the Urban Dwelling Farm owner to real time information on his farm. The Smart Farming system would have/include/mean the sensors, the internet and the photos.
https://www.seeedstudio.com/reServer-c-1687.html
Put some UX research into machine learning by image processing to improve the farm processing practices by reducing the amount of data that has to be collected.
Conduct user research and behavioral data to design to prototype a mobile app for smart farming in the coffee industry.
Users: urban farmer, farm worker.
Create a farm information system so Urban farmers can monitor their farm. Info about quality of farm production. Simplifying the input data, Minimising data entry means that its easy for the farmer to input the data, easing data collection.
We could begin by adding the LoRaWan Vegetable Gardening Monitoring Kit from seeedstudio. This will give us information about the Air Temp, Humidity, Sunlight, Soil Moisture, Temp and Electrical Conductivity. Soil samples would add information about the nutrient content and pH level.
https://www.seeedstudio.com/Vegetable-Gardening-Monitoring-Kit-p-5394.html
App that takes photo of plants, identifies plants, identifies disease, tells you what diseases you have on the farm and how to heal plants
DApp Use Case: Taking photos of plants. As a starting point for our smart farming system. Machine learning by image processing to improve the farm processing Practices by reducing the amount of data that has to be collected. Photos are evidence that certain things have been done. Production process, drying beds, sorting, weight etc simple input data.
Farm manager collects information through a photo taking DApp. Machine learning processes the images and identifies Plant type/variety, age, disease, leaf health.
DApp combines a daily report. Submit info to Cardano Testnet from gateway (using encryptions); RWEAVE for the data. This is collated with the information from the environment sensors. Taking photos of the plants, leaves, will give us information about the Plant type/variety, location, age, access to sunlight, water, disease.
During Harvest we could monitor Number of seeds picked, production process. Possibly put QR codes in drying beds. Possibly use smart scales to measure the amount of coffee picked.
- Planting the seed
- Harvesting and picking
- Sorting and Selecting
- Pulping the cherries
- Fermenting
- Drying
- Storing
- Milling
- Grading/Cupping
- Distributing
- Roasting
- Packaging
- Grinding
- Brewing
- Drinking
SSI information on the coffee picker. Tracking, timestamps and traceability, Touches on digital identity, regulation as code, transparency for the manufacturing process. Farm workers will have an identity, Because they are certifying by submitting information into the farm information system.
Workers won't want to spend their minutes sending information to farm owners. But if free high speed internet was available…
https://www.starlink.com/ satellite broadband connectivity. We could get an RV broadband unit for 99USD per month. RV unit can go anywhere, will run off dual volt batteries. Solving issues of reliability and power. Could run off solar.
Lora. Long range Wireless. https://lora-alliance.org/
Can be run on coin cell batteries. Can send information up to 50 miles.
Can be used to relay transactions.
https://www.seeedstudio.com/Vegetable-Gardening-Monitoring-Kit-p-5394.html
Smart hub Lora Gateway: Lora receiver in the Gateway, Which is also a Wifi hub, which then connects the sensors out in the field. Hub could be a raspberry pi etc. Dashboard server running on local machines. Its the farmer’s data, its the farmer’s environment. Daily updates are available through smartphone realtime connection to the farm. Allowing the Farmer to make informed decisions remotely.
The future of this proposal:
Once we gather this information an alternate source of income is to get volunteer carbon credits. Voluntary carbon credits are a recognised mechanism that allows individuals and companies to invest in environmental projects that contribute to reducing the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere.
Robotics plus: Machine vision. We could upgrade the sensors to small robots that trot around the farm taking photos of coffee trees.
Certification period is a recurrent repeated activity. Currently, information goes into a black hole and there is disillusionment.
Provide traceability. If we increase certifications. Timestamp and traceability, tracking, We'll have the ability to begin competing with Industry code of practice providing traceability for certifications and Issuance of clean coffee movement. A Certificate of Origin (CO) is an important international trade document that certifies that goods in a particular export shipment are wholly obtained, produced, manufactured or processed in a particular country. Issuance of clean coffee movement.
<https://iccwbo.org/resources-for-business/certificates-of-origin/>
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Environment Solutions that help to solve environmental issues
Promoting sustainable agriculture
double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers
Environment - Total number of users, total CO2 sequestered, amount of awareness being produced, number of people changing an environmentally damaging habit
By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality
Nation governance systems - Amount of population onboarded, amount of costs saved due to new solution, security difficulty improvements over previous approach
Existing products or integrations - What products or integrations already exist in the ecosystem? What are the core differences between the proposal being presented and those existing ones and why will that provide impact to the ecosystem?
Technical requirements - Does the Cardano ecosystem have the right tools, libraries and SDKs for the idea to be feasible? What needs to be introduced or improved for the proposal to fully reach its potential? Yes, with the Vasil Hardfork we will be able to complete the proposal, and adapt with any changes.
I think the Cardano Ecosystem is mature enough now to take on real time real world application. - All the integrations we are testing now have been through rigorous testing and are suitable for execution right now. There are enough pieces of infrastructure, applications and other integrations available that we would need for this suggested proposal to have a strong chance of gaining adoption. The SmartFarming DApp will increase the utility & adoption of Cardano.
Success looks like:
A novel and viable application and product/DApp getting built on top of Cardano attracting users on the ground.
Integrations with other existing services, products, and protocols that improve the end-user experience whether that's giving the user more options or making something easier to use that benefits the wider ecosystem.
Existing products or integrations - What products or integrations already exist in the ecosystem? What are the core differences between the proposal being presented and those existing ones and why will that provide impact to the ecosystem?
Seeedstudio: Vegetable-Gardening-Monitoring-Kit- measures Soil moisture, Sunlight intensity, Soil electrical conductivity, Soil temperature, Wind, Rainfall.
Lora: Long range Wireless.
Can be run on coin cell batteries. Can send information up to 50 miles.
Can be used to relay transactions.
Smart hub Lora Gateway: Lora receiver in the Gateway, Which is also a Wifi hub, which then connects the sensors out in the field. Hub could be a raspberry pi etc. Dashboard server running on local machines. Its the farmer’s data, its the farmer’s environment. Daily updates are available through smartphone realtime connection to the farm. Allowing the Farmer to make informed decisions remotely.
Starlink: We could get an RV broadband unit for monthly subscription. RV unit can go anywhere, will run off dual volt batteries. Solving issues of reliability and power. Could run off equator solar.
We could look into collaborating with World mobile for the Tanzanian farm.
Technical requirements - Does the Cardano ecosystem have the right tools, libraries and SDKs for the idea to be feasible? What needs to be introduced or improved for the proposal to fully reach its potential?
Yes, with the Vasil Hardfork we will be able to complete the proposal, and adapt with any changes.
Ecosystem maturity requirements - Why is this product or integration suitable for execution right now? Are there enough pieces of infrastructure, applications or other integrations available that would be needed for this suggested proposal to have a strong chance of gaining adoption? For instance, if you were making a professional social network DApp, do the right identity tools and wallets exist to make a professional network feasible? increasing the utility & adoption of Cardano.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
In a rural environment we need to get reliable info, but there's problems with power, internet coverage etc, We need to get high speed connectivity into these regions as cheaply as possible
Local conditions, drought, flooding
Environmental conditions, climate change, deforestation, biodiversity
Access to capital
Access to local business practices
Social/ cultural practices around collecting information. Most people won't volunteer information, there is a cultural element about changing practices. Start on a small scale. With 3 farms that have experience growing coffee and test the theory.
While this proposal is about coffee in East Africa, the potential of SmatFarming could be applied ato the Coffee industry in coffee growing areas across the equator. Brazil, Columbia, Cameroon, Indonesia, Vietnam etc.
There is also potential for Smart Farming to be applied in the Palm, Cocoa, Mango, Avocado and Sugar Industries.