EhaverstHub
eHarvestHub
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Agriculture

The world to its foundation is still inexistent because of the living organisms in it. All of the living organisms exist because of some major necessities they cannot do without. One of them is food. Man as part of the living organisms depend so much on the food he eats. And what produces the food is agriculture. Agriculture, as shown by the history of man, is the oldest occupation of man. In those days all families of the world are literally involved in tilling of farmlands or rearing of animals for food. As time went on diversification of occupation came in and some people can survive on the foods produced by others through trades. Trades cannot be limited, it extends to the importation of food materials into countries for diverse reasons. It has been shown that developed countries are the highest importer of foods. The chart below shows the results of researchers based on that:
countries importing foods.png
source: eharvestHub whitepaper (link below)
Before farms are literally accessible to people but as time goes on, the civilization or urbanization of some places made farms farther and farther. There other places where the lands are not suitable for farming.

Small and Medium Scale Farmers and Truckers

The highest producers of farm produce in the world are small and medium scale farmers. Research has shown that Asia has the highest population of small and medium scale farmers followed by Africa. These farmers are responsible for up to seventy percent of all food produce (groceries) in the world. But they are the ones who get the lowest profit in the food supply chain. Not just small and medium scale farmers, truckers also form the second most important members of the food supply chain because they help to make fresh food available to consumers through transportation. Truckers are mostly people who own their trucks and wish to use it for transportation for gain, but for their hard work, they gain less and face a lot of challenges. But who are the real earners on the food supply chain?

Earners

Are they Farmers?

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Because of the far distance between farms and marketplace, many small and medium scale farmers find it difficult to transport their produce to the market. The cost is high because the volume of their products is very low. Even if they can transport their produce to the market, finding a consumer in time before their produce gets spoilt is another challenge. They have no choice but to sell to a grocer who is looking for a bulkier produce to buy (buying in bits cannot yield expected returns for a grocer, instead they prefer to buy in bulk). Farmers have no choice but to turn to brokers who offer to help transport farmer’s harvest from the farm and deliver them in bulk (the broker buys from many farmers) and deliver them to brokers. Over the time this has been the case but looking diligently into the process, researchers show that brokers buy at a very low price from farmers (small and medium scale) and sell at a very high price to grocers. This, in turn, makes the cost of groceries very high for final consumers.

My dad is a medium scale farmer, and all family member at a point was involved in farming. I remember how much work was done in planting plantain a few years back. Because dad’s farm is not mechanized, we had to do almost all operations on the farm manually. We carried plantain suckers on our head through a long distance on our head, we dig holes for them and planted them. Some of these thrived while some died. But all our efforts as farmers was ripped off because we had no choice but to sell the harvest to middlemen (who in most cases will also go and resell to other middlemen in a larger market) at a very low price because transportation was costly compared to the harvest. Later on, farmers felt cheated and decided to reduce the number of intermediaries between them and the final consumers. They cooperated and hired truckers to transport their produce (plantain) to another middleman who will help sell to grocers, this also took a lot of time and had so many other challenges.

Or Are they Truckers?

Truckers buy trucks with their own money so they can work, earn and have a lot of rest. They may not be able to have access to large-scale farmers who can hire them and pay them so they turn to brokers. Brokers go into agreements with them that they will not transport for any other except them. This restricts them as they cannot work outside the agreement. They are also paid penny despite their works (being on the road for most times, they also carry the cost and maintenance of their vehicle, etc.). Their free time is taken away from them because if they declined or are not available at some point the broker may find another. It also takes weeks for them to get paid as it takes a lot of time to process a signed bill of lading. So they cannot spend valuable time with their families and they earn so little.

I had a friend in my secondary school days (college equivalent in some countries) whose father is a trucker. His father comes home seldom, and whenever my friend’s father came home, you can see the difference (he becomes happier, and spendy – smiles). I wonder how many families of the world has been ripped apart internally because the father of the house who is a tucker have to spend so much time away from the family on the road, only to come home with penny which could have been more?

EharvestHub

eHarvestHub
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We are here to help small farmers and truckers across the globe increase their profit while making food more accessible and less expensive. We can achieve this with the eHarvestHub marketplace, powered by blockchain protocols and smart contracts that remove the multiple layers of middlemen and the need of human involvement in food safety verification. Our goal is to enable consumers to directly contribute to small farmers around the world using our platform.
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Technology could be used to solve problems battling agriculture today especially for the small and medium scale farmers with truckers. The blockchain technology was designed to remove all intermediaries and connect all key players directly for a seamless low transaction fee contact no matter the distance or location. The blockchain technology which was first designed by Satoshi Nakamoto was applicable for financial transactions. Later, etherium came along with the ability to utilize smart contracts to build different decentralized applications with the aim of removing all intermediaries. This is the mission of eHarvestHub a decentralized platform which seeks to remove all present intermediaries (namely brokers) from the food supply chain and connect farmers, truckers, and grocers together to increase profit for the farmers and truckers while ultimately reducing the cost of food for grocers and consumers.

Small and Medium Scale Farmers

source: google.com
eHarvestHub creates a decentralized platform for farmers to directly connect to truckers and deal without interference. Farmers also get the opportunity to be able to make their produce outside their country of residence in compliance with regulations for the target countries giving them a chance to compete with large-scale farmers. Countries like the USA requires that all farm produce which will be allowed inside the country should possess records of all activities on the farm with transportation records (to ensure the safety of consumables). eHarvestHub provides an application for farmers to be able to keep all these records in a transparent way. Farmers can also use the applications on the platform to list all their produce (and other details) in the e-commerce section so as to be connected directly to grocers. This will help farmers to reduce foods wasted as groceries will be readily available to the grocers through the platform no matter the distance. Small and medium scale farmers will be able to compete with large-scale farmers by making their produce eligible for export.

Truckers

Truckers will also be able to access the platform and get notified of job availability. They will be able to set prices for transportation by the farmer or grocer. They will not be restricted to work for any particular company or broker as they can pick up goods from different farmers and get paid. The platform gives them the opportunity to earn per farmer who requested their services (which is not the case when dealing with brokers). With one tap they get to decided prices, approve whether or not to take jobs. This will enable them to have a lot of free times to spend with their families and not just that get paid according to their works. Payments on the platform are completed within minutes better than weeks in the previous case.

Token

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eHarvestHub token details.png
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The EHH token on the platform will first be used to pay eHarvestHub for their services. Farmers, truckers, and grocers will also be able to make payments with EHH (this will attract several benefits such as discounts).

Video explainer

I don’t think it’s out of place to bring one of the world’s best occupation on the blockchain. eHarvestHub will present small and medium scale farmers the opportunities for a wider market than they had ever known. Through the platform, intermediaries are removed as smart contracts and blockchain technology will enhance transparency and traceability of goods. This is a great innovation, and one can be sure as the Ceo also had a first (to secondhand) experience dealing with farmers and truckers.