Smallholder farmers in many areas of the world struggle daily to make ends meet. They are focused on supporting their families and their communities. Despite the pressure of feeding their families, typically of 7 members, smallholder farmers unknowingly carry much of the burden of solving many of the world’s most pressing issues. If smallholder farmers can increase their yields, reduce their costs and mitigate risks, they could have a considerable influence and impact over the following global issues:

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO), this amounts to over 3 billion people on 475 million small farms. The majority of these farmers live below the poverty line and generally employ only family. Remarkably, in developing nations, these farmers can produce over 70% of the food that the country consumes. The number of medium-size farms globally is rising, and increased smallholder productivity will be the biggest growth driver. Closing the technology gap between developed and developing nations’ agricultural performance makes for considerable gains.

We are striving to “level the playing field” in agricultural technology. Working with our growing global ecosystem we will provide farmers in developing nations with access to the best Agtech platform and innovations, enabling them to:

• Use data to make better decisions
• Create valuable records about their practices
• Access a repository of farming best practices
• Access critical weather, satellite and sensor data

Most importantly we are striving to impact productivity in developing nations. Agricultural productivity growth in low-income countries is rising at an average annual rate of just 1 percent. The UN Sustainable Development Goals call for doubling the productivity of the lowest-income farmers by 2030. Our ecosystem can help achieve incredible growth in productivity, a farmer can double their output in a few short years if they employ best practices.

Attaining the UN goals of doubling productivity significantly impacts the standard of living of smallholder farms as a productivity double allows 5 times as much produce to go to market. This leads to the ability of bringing other people out of food shortage and brings up the standard of living within the community, it will lead to the ability to increase education, potable water, sanitation, road networks and shelter. The social good of these improvements compounds quickly within the community.

According to the World Bank, agricultural development is one of the most powerful tools to end extreme poverty, boost shared prosperity and feed a growing world. Growth in the agriculture sector is 2-4 times more effective in raising incomes among the world’s poorest compared to other business sectors.

Over the past 5 years, smallholder farmers have been rapidly adopting mobile phones. In developing nations, agricultural software is still an expense that farmers cannot afford. Providing Dimitra to smallholder farmers as a platform to run their business, learn new farming techniques, record their performance, and communicate with government ministries and agricultural experts is necessary for accelerating their success.