ICTforAg 2024: Virtual Day - Education on Digitalization: A Key to Overcoming Challenges in...

ICTforAg 2024: Virtual Day
Session: Education on Digitalization: A Key to Overcoming Challenges in Coffee-Producing Countries
Millions of smallholder coffee farmers face significant hurdles, including market volatility, lack of generational shift, climate change, and now more than ever, new regulations that require them to collect large amounts of data. While digitalization alone can’t solve these challenges, it does offer an excellent opportunity for increased efficiency and easier adaptation to this ever-changing scenario. However, integration of digital tools in producing countries is challenged by limited adoption rates and minimal perceived benefits for enterprises and agricultural workers at origin. To solve this, education on digitalization and how to properly integrate it into their business has become a priority. During this panel, Digital Coffee Future (DCF) will discuss the current state of digitalization, and how education on the topic can make supply chain actors more efficient and resilient. Collective Bean will join to share more about their direct experience in the program. Thanks to an ongoing partnership between Rabo Foundation and DCF that started in 2023, 26 coffee enterprises in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia have been able to access to capacity building courses on digitalization. This experience has allowed us to gain crucial insights into the challenges and opportunities of coffee enterprises in Latin American producing countries, and how the adoption of technologies can help them improve their efficiency and access new market opportunities
Speakers:
Cynthia Landeo, Founder, Collective Bean
Elisa Criscione, Founder & CEO, Digital Coffee Future
Marta Salazar, Program Coordinator, Digital Coffee Future