In November of last year, stakeholders in the sugar industry of the Corozal and Orange Walk districts announced the intended rollout of the Belize Smart Sugar Cane Project.
This initiative is envisioned as an online platform built on blockchain technology to establish, quote, "an innovative digital agro-credit, farm service business platform, integrating the Tower Hill Sugar Mill, with credit suppliers, and more than 5,200 small farmers to transform sugar cane cultivation and processing value chain into a modern, more efficient, competitive and certifiable product for the Caribbean and European Market." End quote.
That's a whole lot to promise and as we told you, the sugar scientists and experts have been encouraging the farmers to do everything they can to become more competitive by increasing their efficiency, cutting costs, and using their lands to maximize the total volume of cane they can produce.
This morning, BSI/ASR and the consultants who are about to roll out the testing phase of this new project hosted a virtual press conference to provide an update on its implementation. Here's what they had to say about the organizations that are embracing it in this early stage:
Olivia Avilez - Manager, Cane Farmer Relations, BSI
"Ripe.io is the consultant for this project. You will recall that we launched this project entitled Smart Sugar Cane in February, back in February. This project is being funded by Compete Caribbean, which is also funded by IDB, the Canadian Government, and the British Government. So, those are the funders for this really neat development that we are going to be able to have a benefit here in the sugar industry. And just to give you a bit of background on this week, there are here this week to really trial the prototype that we have. We have a draft of what this Smart Sugar Cane platform will look like. So, it was a very busy week. We touched base with all 3 cane farmer associations. They were able to log in, play with the system, and give feedback- also 3 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're able to get everything right before we launched the whole system to the rest of the farmers."
Phil Harris - CEO, Ripe.io
"Everyone has a common set of problems, and the goal is that by using the technology called blockchain, which is at the core of what we're deploying here, is that it allows for multiple actors to come onto one platform, but all of their data is segregated, and access is only given on a permission basis. So, for example, when a farmer comes on and puts data into the platform, that data is only shared by the farmer with the selected parties that the farmer has chosen to share with. We can walk through that a little bit further on in the conversation. And we have brought technology partners that have been very generous in donating equipment and IOT tags. I do have one that I'll show you in a second but, Avery Dennison specifically, and Zebra Technologies have been very generous in donating these materials for us because they are keenly aware of the value that a platform like this can bring into the ecosystem."
The cost of this new project is estimated at 365 thousand US dollars. Funding for it is being provided by the Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility.
