Ubia Soko: The story of Tech and Smallholder farmers

Meet the Ubia Soko field team on their stopover in Chisano today: Frédéric, Jesko and Joshua. Fred is our CIO and has lived and worked in Tanzania for many years; he has in-depth knowledge of the region. Jesko is one of the larger commodity traders in the Morogoro region and has been central to creating awareness of Ubia Soko amongst farmers. Jesko's familiarity with the region, having lived and worked within the community for over 30 years, is fundamental to creating meaningful farmer relationships.  Joshua has worked with us over the years on a range of commodity and smallholder based programmes and in particular our work on farmer organisation training with the World Food Programme in 2015/16. Together, their combined knowledge and experience is helping us to fine-tune the Ubia Soko product. We feel confident for the future of the platform having such a great team.

In each village we come to there is enthusiasm. The farmers' questions mainly revolve around prices, passwords and packages.  Farmers are keen to understand the specifics of the inputs packages offered on Ubia Soko. Our message here today in Milmba focuses on matching inputs packages to particular commodities as well as how the platform can offer commodity premiums, inputs discounts and secure cashless transactions.

In July a few of the Agriinsight team visited Mbalaji village. When we returned today we were encouraged to see that the farmers had kept their passwords and wanted to continue to use the Ubia Soko service. We worked with farmers who were keen to train and learn more and some helped new farmers to register. This was a succesful farmer association; the secretary of the association can run the training himself. We will work with these proactive groups and their leaders. This village was also well supported by mobile network operators - how can we replicate these optimal conditions?

Farmers are keen to learn and incredibly patient as long as what they learn fits with what they already know. Then they can integrate the new knowledge and use it. Frederic shows farmers the Ubia Soko app and then trains them to use it.  These lessons are more practical than theoretical. Farmers make very basic use of their phones and it seems phone companies don't provide sufficient coverage in rural areas. Coverage is irregular.  We'll find out later what the network in Mbaranji is like.

Although diesel powered toll milling is less powerful, in off grid locations like Magombera it's necessary for local farmers to find a way to dehusk rice.   Ubia Soko  is helping farmers to trade rice collectively and increase revenues.

Mwaya is in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania where our colleague Frederic is training farmers in using our Ubia Soko app. The app is designed to help farmers order inputs and trade their commodities.