Smart Sugar Cane Project Launched

Olivia Carballo

The A.S.R./B.S.I. group held a virtual launch of the Smart Sugarcane Project today. The three hundred and sixty-five thousand U.S.-dollar project seeks to transform the sugarcane industry through an innovative digital agro-credit, farm service business platform.  It integrates the Tower Hill Sugar Mill with credit suppliers and more than five thousand two hundred small farmers to transform sugar cane cultivation and processing value chain.  Olivia Carballo of the B.S.I. explains how the pilot project intends to reduce lending risk by providing agro credit through service provision which is repaid from revenue from the cane crop directly through the mill.

Olivia Carballo, Cane Farmer Relations Manager, B.S.I.

“We have a draft of what this smart sugarcane platform will look like. So, it was a very busy week and we touched based with all three cane farmer associations and they were able to log in and play with the system and give feedback; also, three financial institutions that made the cut for the pilot and one service provider who made the cut for the pilot. We are piloting this project so that we can get everything right before we expand to the rest of the farmers. This week was about getting feedback on that first draft and also trialing some really neat equipment that the experts call IOT devices so that they can track the time and process of the cane delivery; that hasn’t been seen here in the north and we are trialing those devices so that we make sure that works how we want them to work. And also we are wrapping up the first draft and the two most important pieces of information or players need to go up first and that is the cane farmer and their association. And now we have the profiles from the financial institution and what we want from the system – we want the farmer to be able to access better financial services and we want the financial institutions to be able to access the right farmer information so that they can give better loans and able to decrease their risk on the loans they are offering; offer better interest rates, mainly from having the information and having a quick and easy and direct relationship through the digital platform.”