Almost
28 weeks after we first heard of the assignment UTZ Certified and TAHMO had
come up with together, and 22 weeks after our first meeting with Rolf (TAHMO)
and Wiard (UTZ), we are almost at the end of our project. Though hopefully we
are only at the beginning, our results serving as a solid starting point for a
quick and effective implementation of the proposed concept. We hope that coming
Monday we can show our project partners how proud we are of what we found out
this past few months. We think that the solution we have come up with could be
implemented within only a few years from now.
The past
four weeks, since the second group returned from Kenya, we worked on the
implementation plan for our concept. As in previous blogs, we do not want to
give away too much online, but we will tell you some things about it:
-
It
would be best to run a small scale pilot of the system we designed somewhere in
Kenya, to find out how it works and how it will be perceived, understand and
used by farmers on the long term.
-
After
this pilot the system could best be implemented on a large scale directly, to
save a lot of costs (since most parts of the system then would be mass
produced).
-
Cooperatives
will not receive money for maintaining the weather stations placed at their
factories (that will be delivering weather data) but at the same time they do
not have to pay for receiving weather forecasts, for big maintenance on the
station or for software fixes.
-
Many
parties we spoke to in the past months have shown their interest in our project
and often offered to play a (financially supporting) part in it. This lead to a
lot of those organizations being involved in our implementation plan. Every
party has a different advantage (like connections on the right levels or
knowledge on the right elements) and all have similar interests and goals as
ours, TAHMO’s and UTZ’s. It does make the implementation plan of the already
complex system even more complicated. With the right party in charge of the
implementation everything should work out just fine though.
-
Too
reach all Kenyan coffee farmers (or as many as possible) it is necessary to
involve all Kenyan marketing agents, including those that do not have any UTZ
certified farmers linked to them. Other ‘competing’ certifiers might also need
to be involved in the implementation to make sure all farmers will be helped with
more accurate weather forecasts, advice on coffee cultivation and factory
related information. As in so many things in life, it is important that all parties
(want to) work together to achieve the highest goal.
More
accurate weather forecasts will prevent farmers from wasting chemicals,
fertilizer or money on labour. Therefore we believe that what we designed will
help Kenyan coffee farmers with their farming activities and improve their
productivity, eventually increasing their quality of life. It will also open up
a new line of communication among coffee factories and their coffee farmers and
hopefully more oral discussion between them and amongst each other as well.
We hope
we can show our partners the potential of our concept as well, but we will see
next Monday! Who knows, this blog post might be the last ever, or it might be
the first one in a new phase: reporting the progress on the finishing touches
and on the implementation of our weather information providing concept for
coffee farmers in Kenya!
