AgUnity along with partners Virginia Tech (Virginia, United States) and Egerton University (Njoro, Kenya) are traveling to Kakamega County, located in western Kenya, this week to distribute AgUnity phones to producers, traders, and retailers of African indigenous vegetables (AIVs). The community-based organization, New Vision, will also be receiving phones to support their farmers in marketing their vegetables in the county.
The Exploring the Use of Blockchain Technology to Improve Food Security Through African Indigenous Vegetables in Western Kenya project is funded by USAID via the LASER PULSE project led by Purdue University. AgUnity is the primary research translation partner for this project. Building upon the AgUnity smartphone application and OS solution for tracking agricultural products, the app has been customized for the AIV value chain to increase the flow of vegetables through to the end consumer to help increase food and nutrition security in the county.
The first part of this project was dedicated to understanding the AIV value chain and the pain points of its actors. It is with great pleasure that we can announce that a prototype has been developed and will be tested in the field over the coming months. This phase of the project will include several update releases, rounds of user testing as part of the participatory design process, monthly reporting from the app, troubleshooting, reporting, and training of Egerton University faculty and students on blockchain technology and coding. It will culminate with an exciting Hackathon event (expected September 2021) that will see teams of Egerton University students code applets to address pain points of value chain actors that will be deployed within the super app ecosystem.
We at AgUnity see this project as an incredibly innovative one that enables academic researchers to connect the last mile with blockchain technology to support improved food security and nutrition. The vision is to scale up this model, so if you are a university or associated stakeholder interested in implementing a similar project in your region - get in touch with one of our partnership managers to explore how! www.agunity.com/contact-us
