IQ Logistica is the company behind the IQ Thentic SaaS products that are seeing easy-to-use innovation made easily available and accessible to South African Farmers in 2021. The IQ Thentic platforms see big data accumulation as a tangible reality for agriculture in Africa, today. We spoke to David Jeromin, Director of Business Development for IQ Logistica on the products, and how they are working hand-in-hand with farmers to promote sustainability, traceability and data solutions on agriculture in the South African environment.
How do the IQ Thentic Platforms work for Farmers?
“The IQ Thentic platform is at the center of the farmer’s ecosystem. We have solutions for farmers, processors, insurers and financiers. For farmers, we have developed an easy-to-use, cloud based platform that translates into a business intelligence dashboard of all of the farmer’s operations. This data is captured via input from the farmer, iOT, or other participants on the system; namely extension officers.
“We assist farmers in creating budgets, securely storing their organisational information, monitoring the application of their fertilisers, water usage, and of course their outputs such as yields of grain and feeds as a very quick example. This information then works for farmers in the tracking of their inputs against their yield expectations, allowing them to track and pivot needed adjustments and reactions”.
How do the IQ Thentic platforms nurture the need for traceability?
“The platform was initially built on the principle of traceability, specifically to address the certification process for various farmers. However, IQ Thentic has evolved to view traceability at the farm level as encompassing additional areas such as financial and behavioral traceability to walk hand in hand with actual product traceability. The company feels the traceability of money budgeted or spent is an equally important tool for farmers as the movement of their product. The offering of financial, behavioural, contractual, and product traceability is the 360 degree view of a farmer’s operation and that’s what IQ Logistica aims to be for our farming community”.
How does IQ Logistica assist farmers in their sustainability goals?
“IQL has worked with Cotton SA and its farmers over the past 6 years in assisting with the Better Cotton Initiative accreditation. This certification process has opened doors for farmers to access additional markets that would not have been available to them otherwise. There is a global movement to reduce environmental impacts from the growth and processing of cotton from farm to fashion and IQ Logistica has been proud to play our part in that journey. Taking the lessons learned from cotton, we inherently embed the sustainability certifications of all crops we are expanding into for the potential financial benefit of not only the farmer but also the environment”.
Where has IQ Logistica seen success with the use of these platforms?
“In 2020, IQ Logistica rolled out its first farmer finance pilot in Roedtan in partnership with Forward Finance and AgNovate. The pilot was impactful and successful in a number of ways for the farmer as well as financier and insurer. The innovation of the pilot was the structure of the finance which was granted by the farmers’ historical farming performance (yield) and their sales contract, and therefore better supporting them with further success. In essence, farmers were being judged by how well they farm as opposed to how much money they had in the bank or collateral in their portfolio. Farmers were required to collect data on their day-to-day farming performance using our platform and this was furnished to Forward Finance for approval of further funding. The outcome was a resounding success for all parties involved and we are excited to scale up the programme this year”.
How accessible is this software to farmers? What do they need to have to be able to start using them?
“We are in the process of launching our self registration portal for farmers to begin signing up individually. However, for certain cooperatives, associations, and agriculture unions that are using our platform we launch in a closed environment. Once you’re enrolled on the platform, it’s really easy to use. Our team is readily available for a seamless transition onto the platform”.
How do the IQ Thentic SaaS platforms assist farmers with better yield outputs?
“It’s no secret that if you wish to optimise your results, you need to measure your performance. Whether it is measuring your budget spend, your day-to-day behaviours, or the effects of soil moisture or temperatures, all of these measurements are vital in securing better yields in a given farming season. We know that farmers understand this concept; our job is to provide the one place where they can track all of those items. Our future, together with our South African farmers, is to give as much information as possible that farmers may need to make better decisions before something negatively affects their outcome”.
What are the inadvertent benefits to Farmers in South Africa for using the software?
“The greatest inadvertent benefit to farmers is the view of their historical trends beyond the previous season. When farmers are actively collecting data, our analytics have the ability to identify longer term trends that potentially weren’t thought of which provides great insight on where a farmer’s performance may be headed in the future”.
Relevant pages on AgribookDigital include “Digital Agriculture“, “Food Safety and Traceability” and “Cotton“.
