Social farming

SOCIAL FARMING

Challenge: Business continuity in times of COVID19.

VisualNacert is an agricultural management software supporting companies and farmers. The company provides data organization, reports, and real-time information tools in order to reduce costs and increase productivity.

During the Covid-19 crisis, we as a company, as well as the rest of the world, have been facing major challenges. Our country is one of the most affected, and the lockdown has halted development in many sectors. The agricultural sector is one of the most essentials, therefore we want to make it easier for farmers to keep their operations, for the sake of the country.

Our company has already been implying digitalization processes and adapting to work from home to the employees safe. At the same time, we also want to stay close to our customers so they can securely continue with their business.

Identifying the problem:

In our sector, we have identified the need for digitalizing agricultural processes. With the measures of the recent crisis of Covid-19, some of our customers were put at risk for having to administrate their crops and other outdoor activities. Older farmers but also other vulnerable agriculturalists, needed a solution to keep themselves safe and at the same time, to keep their productivity.

Our idea

Developing an internal messaging tool to manage farmers' land from home, especially for elderly who are considered to be the most vulnerable. A tool that also allows the farmers to get feedback and register their activities.

How does it work?

Users can address their requirements with the help of the tool, to those in charge of their land such as guards, administrators, technical teams, etc. The tool is simple and straightforward, similar to SMS. When the assignment is fulfilled, the personnel in charge can comfortably communicate back through the tool and the information will be registered in the system. The tool geo-locate all the data and attach it to the farm, keeping all the information organized and fully accessible. Besides it allows to record the activities done in the field and visualize it easily using a map. In this way, the customers will also have available a track of their previous actions.

What do we solve?

• Prevent unnecessary wandering outdoor during the time of the lockdown
• Take adequate care of the land and keep up the productivity
• Stay close to our customers in times of crisis and keep them safe

What have we done during the weekend?

During the weekend we have rushed an MVP that enables communication among all the people involved in farming. We have developed a tool that can be used for collaborative farming, allowing public employees to take care of fields that elderly and small farmers can’t manage because of lockdown and safety measures to control COVID-19 expansion.

Our first step has been a brainstorming and design thinking session to find the problems that farmers are facing up during the crisis. As result we found this social farming tool that will enable communication and farm geo location in order to make possible that non-farmers manage the farms of people that has engaged the program following their instructions.

After that we have done a quick UX/UI design to test our idea and see how it will look in our platform. As result we had a first mockup sowing all the possible use cases and user histories.

Then we started technical definitions, defining all the components that will be developed and how they will behave. This stage was followed by backend development, frontend development and app integration.

As result we have developed an MVP that allows messaging between our users thus allowing to collaborate between those taking care of the farms and the farmers.

Impact

Our effort would be surely appreciated during the crisis until the situation is under control again. We don’t know how long the lockdown will last, but with this tool, we can at least be sure that our customers are a little safer. Besides, this tool will be useful after the crisis as well. Our farmers can use it just to work in a more effective way, saving time and mobility costs, and keeping a track on their activities.

Next steps

We designed a plan to exhibit this tool (and the rest of our VISUAL 4.0 platform) to certain public institutions, as small municipal governments of cities predominantly dependent on the agricultural sector. The tool would not incur any cost for social farming and this way, it can be used by those in need.

Built With

• java-and-angular-js