By Aloysious Kasoma
Thousands of small holder farmers in Sebei and Western region have embraced the new wave of blockchain technology.
According to Theunis Coetzee, Agric Manager EAAB Inbev, the brewing company has initiated farmers of barley and sorghum from Kapachorwa, Kween, Zombo and Bukwo others include Kabale, Kisoro and Kanungu, Teso and Lango,
Nile Breweries Ltd is enhancing economic opportunities for small holder farmers within its supply chain and the programme is being implemented as a partnership between Top brewer ABInbev, the parent company and BanQu, a non-cryptocurrency blockchain platform, with Barley farmers in Uganda and cassava farmers in Zambia being the pilot.
Through this collaboration, we are providing farmers with access to digital payments and technology to further their economic opportunity as a means of achieving our agriculture sustainability goal to have 100% of our direct farmers skilled, connected and financially empowered by 2025.
“The technology allows transparent real time transactions with end traceability. Farmers’ data is recorded on spot and the farmer owns this data and is able to access it from anywhere,” said Theunis Coetzee, Agric Manager EA AB Inbev.
“This therefore increases accountability, and the same data of produceand earnings enable farmers have better access to financial tools and partnership opportunities with financial services,” he said.
Started in 2018 in Sebei sub region, the pilot in Uganda recorded 349 transactions worth over Shs880M on 587 tonnes of barley from the 316 registered farmers.
By the end of 2019, 4000 barley farmers will be registered. It is projected that 8000 tons of barley will be bought through blockchain. Currently NBL has 8,000 barley farmers.
“We support our direct farmers to access cutting-edge innovations through digital tools like Blockchain because it is important for us that our farmers are getting better at their activity and are also making money,” said Onapito Ekomoloit, Legal &Corporate Affairs Director, NBL.
“This Smart Agriculture project enables us show who the farmers are, as we have record and also prove that they are indeed making money,” he said.
According to Onapito, NBL is pleased to be sharing how it is providing solutions to create a better world through such emerging technologies with like-minded businesses and individuals at the Africa Block Chain Conference 2019.
