Data Warehouse for Small-Scale Farmers
Standardizing Data Collection and Analysis
In 2022, Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT), a Tanzanian NGO and social enterprise, approached us with a request to support the digitalization and automation of their farmer management system. SAT is a medium-sized organization with around 100 employees, collaborating with a growing network of farmer cooperatives that collectively serve approximately 100,000 small-scale farmers across various regions in Tanzania.
Challenges
Before the project, SAT was already collecting vast amounts of data from farmers and their farms. However, this was primarily done using pen and paper in the field, with data managers later entering the information into large, interconnected Excel sheets at the main office. This approach was prone to errors and led to several challenges, such as:
- Growing complexity due to the compliance with EU regulations for organic certification
- Scaling up effectively through active farmer engagement
- Monitoring and tracking progress accurately
- Expanding the range of services offered
- Implementing role-based access control
- Improving data quality
- Accelerating data processing and analysis
Buying Existing Farmer Management Solutions ...
- Established competitors (e.g., FarmForce, Smallholdr)
- Pricing models can be restrictive
- Limited flexibility and potential for vendor lock-in
- Often requires costly smartphones
... vs Building a Custom Solution
- Flexible and easily extendable
- Pricing remains stable, regardless of user count
- Seamlessly integrates with existing tools (e.g., Kobo, ODK)
- Ensures full data ownership
- Operable on low-cost smartphones
- Offline capabilities
Features
- Comprehensive farmer records, including farm details, socio-economic statistics, training history, project memberships, and more
- Flexible data collection tailored to organic certification requirements (e.g., EU Organic certification)
- GIS capabilities for both overview maps and detailed farm plot analysis
- Project dashboards for at-a-glance insights
- Data imports via Excel, web interface, or KoboToolbox
Outlook
The project is under continuous development and is currently in phase 4. We have also begun collaborating with international organizations, such as SEKEM and Economy of Love in Egypt.
Impressions
Data collection in the field
Dashboard (mock data)
GIS overview (mock data)
Farmer record overview (mock data)