The Organic Farming Academy (OFA) was contracted by Organic Africa,a leading producer of organic products for export, to introduce a traceability application throughout the companies operations.
The application was developed by German software company SAP. Rural Sourcing covers many features including farmer registration, field mapping, processing and storage.
In this year OFA is introducing the buying feature countrywide in close cooperation with SAP Rural Sourcing to continuously improve and further develop the application. The digitization of such processes significantly improves the availability of data, transparency and accountability, says Talent Jokonya, OFA systems administrator, who has been actively involved in modifying the features to the clients needs over the past two years.
The Extension Executives(EEs) would come to the office and enter data in excel sheets manually, which is time-consuming and always provides room for human errors. . But with the Rural Sourcing App, it has become very easy to capture and receive data on the same day. Once the data is uploaded onto the system, the dashboard can generate a variety of analytics extremely helpful to improve operations on the ground and future business decisions,” Jokonya said. He adds “The introduction of the digital system eradicates the inconsistencies experienced around the manual system because now the farmer can sign digitally and receive an SMS confirmation receipt
“The traceability application also captures the location of the buying and a picture of the farmer,”added the OFA systems administrator.
As part of the traceability system, QR Codes have been introduced and significantly eased the data capturing.
The application has been introduced in Binga, Rushinga, Mbire, Mudzi, Mukumbura, Chipinge and Birchenough Bridge for the buying of Rosella and baobab fruits .
The traceability application can manage to track the food production cycle from ‘farm to fork’ to enhance food security as most important requirement in the export market.