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Garment-maker Esquel calls the Triple-A approach
08 May '08
3 min read
Netafim's equipment uses sensor-driven valves that drip precisely the amount of water needed to get an optimum yield based on the soil condition, weather, and the crops being grown.
In developed nations, well-educated farmers have little trouble using the technology. Not so in markets like India, Afghanistan, and Africa.
“They are poor farmers and are often illiterate. Give them the equipment and they don't even know how to operate it,” Lee said.
Netafim found it too expensive and inconvenient to send its engineers to often-remote farms. Instead, the company developed a system to transmit crop and moisture information with wireless technology from the farms to engineers back at base stations, who then monitored and customized the process. “You need to have a service mentality,” said Lee.
He cited Chinese garment-maker Esquel as a firm interested in sustainability. The firm processes and treats water from the dyeing process and recycles it in a company-run organic fruit orchard.
Esquel also provides microloans to small farmers during the three-year transition period required to go from conventional to organic farming, and has built schools at their factories and farms for employees' children.
India's ITC Ltd aims to solve logistical problems faced by small farmers who must make a multiday journey to get their soybean harvest to market.
If rain doesn't ruin their harvest during the trip to the closest trading town, competition from neighboring farmers may have driven prices down. Getting advance information would solve those problems, ITC determined.
So the company equipped village elders with computers and internet access so they could pass along information to farmers in their region about world crop prices and demand.
Acting as a middleman, ITC also enables buyers to purchase crops online, so harvests need travel only from the farm to the purchaser.
Today, 3.5 million small farmers receive information from village elders via ITC, which also arranges for farmers to have fertilizer, seeds, and other goods delivered when the firm picks up the crops.
Returning to his Triple-A list, Lee said: “Restructuring the information flow is agility. Adapting it based on different geographies is the adaptability side. Alignment is making sure it is win-win.”
In developed nations, well-educated farmers have little trouble using the technology. Not so in markets like India, Afghanistan, and Africa.
“They are poor farmers and are often illiterate. Give them the equipment and they don't even know how to operate it,” Lee said.
Netafim found it too expensive and inconvenient to send its engineers to often-remote farms. Instead, the company developed a system to transmit crop and moisture information with wireless technology from the farms to engineers back at base stations, who then monitored and customized the process. “You need to have a service mentality,” said Lee.
He cited Chinese garment-maker Esquel as a firm interested in sustainability. The firm processes and treats water from the dyeing process and recycles it in a company-run organic fruit orchard.
Esquel also provides microloans to small farmers during the three-year transition period required to go from conventional to organic farming, and has built schools at their factories and farms for employees' children.
India's ITC Ltd aims to solve logistical problems faced by small farmers who must make a multiday journey to get their soybean harvest to market.
If rain doesn't ruin their harvest during the trip to the closest trading town, competition from neighboring farmers may have driven prices down. Getting advance information would solve those problems, ITC determined.
So the company equipped village elders with computers and internet access so they could pass along information to farmers in their region about world crop prices and demand.
Acting as a middleman, ITC also enables buyers to purchase crops online, so harvests need travel only from the farm to the purchaser.
Today, 3.5 million small farmers receive information from village elders via ITC, which also arranges for farmers to have fertilizer, seeds, and other goods delivered when the firm picks up the crops.
Returning to his Triple-A list, Lee said: “Restructuring the information flow is agility. Adapting it based on different geographies is the adaptability side. Alignment is making sure it is win-win.”
Esquel Group
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