Suppliers of seeds and Lead Farmers (“Aggregators”) are at the heart of every farmer community in emerging countries. As a result of the increasing use of disruptive technologies such as Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Semantics, IoT etc., the existence of these ‘middleman’ is at stake.

​Multinational agribusiness shortens its value chains and enhances ‘from farm to fabric’ and even from ‘farm to fork’ through the use of Blockchain technologies that will be used more and more by the big industries to increase customer trust (tracking food products). This will rapidly broaden the gap between technology advanced farmers and Aggregators on the one hand, and the presently excluded on the other hand. Only farmers and Aggregators that are able to integrate these technologies in their day-to-day operations will be able to play their part in the value chain. To avoid such gap, Aggregators can play a crucial role in participating in new supply chains based upon such new technologies, and will thus not become redundant. To this extent, the Aggregators will be equipped with improved varieties of seeds, a coating and drying tool for enhancing shelf life of local seeds, a device with several dApps (decentralized apps, connected to smart contracts) on it to smooth transactions with all actors, and Train the Trainer courses.

Global leading seed companies invest hundreds of million dollars annually to develop cutting-edge know-how and genetic resources to accelerate the breeding of new and improved varieties suitable for specific geographical conditions worldwide. These huge investments result in thousands of hybrid varieties with improved traits such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, longer shelf-life and increased crop yield of high quality.

However, these existing varieties remain out of the reach of smallholder farmers in developing countries: Seeds of multinational companies are produced in the South, shipped back to the North to undergo treatment (coating and drying) and are then too expensive to be sold in the South again. To break this cycle, Aggregators and subsequently farmers should be enabled to buy these expensive seeds on credit, which have a proven 5 times higher yield than local seeds. When they sell the yields, they can pay back the credit giver and from the additional proceeds they can buy the improved seeds again for the next year and thus gradually expand their business.

We aim to make the improved seeds available for use by the smallholder farmers in a holistic manner, as follows:

1. Improved varieties that are presently sold by the 9 multinational seed companies in the North undergo phenotyping (blind testing) to assess whether they are suited for the local (climatological) circumstances of the Aggregator in the South.
2. A certain stack of these seeds is bought by the Aggregator on a credit provided by the Aggregators Fund, backed by the multinational seed company whose seeds have been positively tested and sold to the Aggregator);
3. Simultaneously, the positively tested seeds will be registered with the National Seed Register by the seeds owner, via a smart contract.
4. The seeds will subsequently be sold by the Aggregator to the farmers on the basis of a loan, to be paid back after harvesting and selling the crops.
5. The Aggregator will pay back the credit to the Aggregators Fund after receipt of pay-back by the farmer.
6. The Aggregator will be able to de-risk by enhancing the shelf life of the local seeds it offers, through
   coating and drying of these local seeds. This will provide added value as well, since the seeds will
   contain a biological pesticide and can be sold at a higher price by the Aggregator.
7. Insurance Companies will be subcontracted to make sure that the farmers can take out micro-insurance for their crops. Through satellite information and food security models, risks can be roughly calculated on the basis of earlier climatological patterns and lost yields in a certain area.

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The seed companies will provide SOS Labs with access to their existing high quality resilient vegetable varieties and with an initial supply of seeds for trials and training as well as the relevant know-how. Each of the seed companies will receive the results and trial reports related to its varieties, will gain contacts and know-how needed for importation and commercial registration of the recommended varieties, will benefit from positive reputation, will gain entrance into seed-markets in emerging countries and help it grow. Eventually, the seed companies will provide a sustainable supply of seeds to smallholder farmers through their local distributors.