Farm-safe

"The digital bridge between smallholder farmers and institutional buyers."

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  1. Inspiration

We are addressing a critical challenge in Malawi’s food system or any other setting that could find this helpful going beyond climate shocks alone. From our research, including insights from the World Food Program's work in Malawi, we see that food insecurity is driven by a systemic disconnection between local food production and local consumption. Smallholder farmers who produce most of the country’s food operate with very limited information. They often have no advance warning of droughts, floods, or delayed rains, and they have little to no visibility into who needs their produce, what fair market prices are, or when demand exists for example Malawian pigeon pea farmers missed an opportunity to engage with an Indian interested party in time which could have been life changing to most of them as reported by Agri-Malawi.com.

Because of this, farmers are frequently forced to sell immediately after harvest to local middlemen at very low prices, especially during post-harvest periods when supply is high and cash pressure is intense. This leads to reduced incomes, food waste, and continued vulnerability. At the same time, institutional buyers such as school feeding programs, hospitals, retailers, and humanitarian organizations struggle to reliably source food locally. They lack clear visibility into where crops are being produced, when harvests will happen, and how climate shocks may affect supply. As a result, buyers often depend on imports or emergency food aid, even when food is available locally but poorly coordinated. We see this broken connection between farmers and buyers as a key reason why food insecurity persists despite ongoing relief efforts.

  1. Our Proposed Solution We propose a digital, hyperlocal agricultural coordination platform that connects smallholder farmers and farmer cooperatives directly with institutional buyers and consumers, while integrating climate early-warning information. Our goal is not just to create another marketplace, but to build a decision-support and coordination layer for Malawi’s local food system. Through this platform, we aim to: Empower farmers with market visibility and direct access to buyers Empower buyers with transparent, localized sourcing options Embed climate resilience by providing early warnings that inform planning on both sides This approach aligns with the shift from emergency response toward resilience and locally driven food systems that organizations like WFP are working toward in Malawi.

  2. Unique Value Proposition FARM SAFE aims to fix the broken link between farmers and buyers by turning local farm data and climate alerts into coordinated action. By sharing basic information on crops, locations, expected harvest periods, and localized climate warnings, the platform provides simple, actionable insights that help farmers make better selling decisions and help buyers plan local sourcing more effectively. This improves coordination in the food system and supports greater resilience to climate-related disruptions.

  3. Technical Architecture & Data Flow We designed the system to be technically realistic and suitable for Malawi’s connectivity constraints. -Data Inputs .Farmer profiles and crop listings .Buyer requests and tenders .Climate data (rainfall, NDVI – simulated or open datasets) .Market price benchmarks

-Platform Core .Backend API using NestJS .PostgreSQL database for structured data .Real-time alerts via Web-sockets .Lightweight analytics for risk flags and market insights

-Interfaces .Farmer Responsive Web interface .Buyer web dashboard .Public information page

  1. Challenges -The hardest part was finding API's (Weather API's) on the internet and integrating with our web application.

  2. Achievements

  3. We managed to integrate various API's regardless of the setbacks.

  4. Lessons

  5. its always important to think backwards from the solution backwards the development when addressing problems.

  6. Whats next

  7. We want to engage some AI features in case we don't include them in this hackathon deployment we also would like to improve it to accommodate many other countries affected by similar situations.

  8. REFERENCES

  9. To check out the driving motives for our web app's basis and grounding

  10. https://www.wfp.org/countries/malawi#:~:text=WFP/Giulio%20d'Adamo,HIV%20and%20AIDS%20infection%20rate

  11. https://agri-malawi.com/2025/06/malawis-pigeon-pea-predicament-farmers-lament-missed-india-opportunity/

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