FARM4TRADE OPENS THE DOORS OF THE FIRST RESOURCE CENTRE FOR LIVESTOCK FARMERS IN NAMIBIA: THE FARM4TRADE CAFÉ.
A fundamental need for breeding and livestock farming communities.
Many breeders and livestock farmers and newcomers do not have a support community to develop their productivity and business practices.They face falling behind in modern agriculture and zootechnics practices, and subsequently decreasingly their productivity. Food supply sustainability worldwide is increasingly threatened by rural depopulation of regions with strong agricultural vocation. It is imperative to slow it down by supporting and empowering local agricultural communities. In addition, with new technologies, it’s possible to improve business performance while contributing to employment increase among young people. Agriculture, especially in developing countries, suffers from the effects of the lack of pertinent information. Breeders do not have access to market prices and real-time information about the value of their livestock. Vendors struggle to find new commercial partners and adequate transport service; governments and international organizations have difficulty reaching people in some areas and are unable toimplement a suitable animal identification and traceability system that satisfies international standards to have access to the exports market.
INTRODUCING “FARM4TRADE CAFÉ”, A PLACE TO GATHER, LEARN AND GROW.
The Farm4Trade Caféis a resource center which offers free services to breeders and livestock farmers and while promoting the advantages of Free (and Premium) Farm4Trade applications.The goal is to provide the community and our clients with a comfortable and accessible experience, where they can the information needed to manage their farms. Offering a physical space make it accessible to passersby, encourages walk-ins and creates a buzz in the community.
Intended benefits for the community:
- Free Training events for attendees, such as series of technical sessions, from for entry level farming to, to accelerated usage of Farm4trade tools.
- Get help from experts with a focus on specific needs.
- Opportunity collaborate with Farm4trade directly by voicing requests or issues.
- Ask an expert intimacy and collaboration with customers, with a focus on their specific needs.
- Connects people with colleagues.
- Attract new people to the community and support and encouragement their journey.
- Great conversation over a cup of coffee!
Offered services
- Technology: products and services with high technological value for the livestock sector.
- Training: we provide, in collaboration with the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) - University of Namibia (UNAM), training services for breeders which will take place in classroom.
- E-learning: digitized training contents and distance learning courses with tutoring service and remote support.
- Consultancy: consulting services for nutrition, disinfection, characterization and analysis.
- WiFi & Workstations: Free internet connection and workstations to access Farm4Trade applications.
- Bar:a well stocked coffee bar.
Complimentary technological products and services to enhance productivity.
Farm4Trade is an integrated cloud based system of tools for collecting and managing data, along the entire supply chain: from breeding to slaughtering, from buying to selling.The crowdsourced data collection system helps farmers to improve their production capacity taking real control of their data. Our technology also allows those who live in remote areas of the planet to use the system offlineon their device and later synchronise everything on the cloud when they have an online connection.
A RESOURCE CENTER AND MORE
We strongly believe in the strength of technology, but only when it’s integrated with tradition and local culture to deliver a wide range of benefits for the community and the environment. Since Farm4trade applications are offered as a Software as a Service (Saas) accessible online, but we've decided to also use this point of personal contact to leverage our relationship with our customers and the community to collect helpful feedback and listen to requests, to continually improve the customer experience. We've chosen the solidarity Franchising model because it enables us to achieve our goals and to bring real benefits to the local people with new jobs opportunities for the Namibian community and breeders.
OBJECTIVES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
TheFarm4Trade Cafè will be a resource centre whose purpose is the implementation of a "Youth Entrepreneurship Development Program" with a view for lasting, inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Objectives are:
- Encourage youth entrepreneurship;
- Modernize livestock sector through the introduction and promotion of new technologies;
- Educate breeders on the management and economic aspects of the company;
- Improve farm productivity by professionally managing reproductive and nutritional aspects and applying genetic improvement plans;
- Prevent the abandonment of rural areas through the creation of new jobs;
- Advance animal identification and traceability by improving food safety.
The first café will be located in Windhoek,Namibia, with intentions to open in other locations in neighbouring countries with co-partners (solidarity franchising). For more information on the project and the upcoming countries where we’ll open the future Farm4Trade Cafe, the click here.
