Resilient Ecosystems
BioMio
Subscription-based model that ensures a fair return for smallholder farmers and a growing market for regenerative agriculture
One-line solution summary:
An innovative, subscription-based model that ensures a fair return for smallholder farmers and a growing market for regenerative agriculture
Pitch your solution.
Facing competition from industrialized agriculture and the challenges of poor infrastructure and access to markets, smallholder farmers in Colombia face the impossible task of securing a sustainable income. Every year, rural poverty increases along with environmental degradation. BioMio is an innovative, subscription-based model that directly links farmer and consumer, guarantees a fair income and strengthens ecosystems with regenerative agriculture.
BioMio customers don’t buy a head of lettuce or a pound of carrots, they pay a monthly fee for weekly deliveries of produce from a 40 square meter area from a smallholder farmer. With regenerative agriculture, farmers grow quality produce and with same-day harvest and delivery we ensure satisfied clients. We diversify our offer with locally produced high-end artisanal food products creating a high added-value chain that strengthens local traditions, producers’ income and consumer loyalty. It is a solution replicable in rural areas near major urban markets.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
In the outskirts of Colombia’s capital Bogotá, smallholder farmers are unable to climb out of poverty. An uneven playing field, a marked digital divide and poor infrastructure combine to deny them a fair and secure income. In the valley of Río Blanco, an hour’s drive from the capital, 80% of its 40,000 inhabitants are smallholder farmers, earning less than USD $100 a month, or less than 50% of the minimum wage.
Despite Colombia’s extraordinary biodiversity, market forces promote fewer and less nutritious crop varieties that benefit agro-industry and exclude smallholder farmers. Without access to a secure income, farmers are unable to plan for the future. The first step to guarantee sustainability is to transform agricultural inputs. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides account for 35% of farmers’ costs and 15% of emissions, while destroying the soil’s microbial wealth, polluting water sources and leaving a huge carbon footprint as most inputs come from the US and China.
Farmers’ income is greatly affected by price fluctuations and intermediaries. Unable to make a living, younger generations are migrating to the city leaving abandoned and degraded land and the market at the mercy of long and fragile food chains.
What is your solution?
BioMio is a subscription-based model for consumers that guarantees market access and a higher income for smallholder farmers. Clients pay a monthly subscription to receive deliveries of quality, organic produce less than 10 hours after harvest. This way we eliminate intermediaries, double farmers’ income and security by guaranteeing harvest purchase.
We drastically reduce our carbon footprint, strengthen our ecosystems and promote crop biodiversity with 100% organic, locally-sourced agricultural inputs. We track levels of carbon sequestration, mineralization and microbial growth through the use of chromatography.
We strengthen capacity-building and local traditions through the development and production of high-end artisanal products. From goat cheese, smoked bacon to one-of-a-kind hot sauces, we have two continually expanding product lines of artisanal products. We fine-tune local culinary traditions, safeguarding local knowledge and generating additional income opportunities.
We are structuring these production processes to transform the region into a culinary tourism hotspot led by local families. We create new products and strengthen existing ones (mead, dairy and cheeses, sauces, marmalades, distilled spirits) to create unique experiences for the gastronomy tourism market.
BioMio is a transformative, local solution that creates a resilient circular economy, regenerates our ecosystems and transforms our agricultural landscape.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
As BioMio founding partners, we have been a part of the local economy of the Valley of the Río Blanco since 2014, working in different areas such as the bioconstruction of sustainable homes and building capacities for democratic change and participation. We have witnessed how time and time again, farmers bet on single crops because it is the “only business they know”, only to lose their investment to the volatility and unfair challenges of the market. We have seen how our neighbors’ fields become more unproductive and how much time and money is spent pouring chemicals to eke out crops from degraded soils.
Our region is only an hour’s drive from Bogota, a capital city of 8 million people and more than 80% of its 40,000 inhabitants are smallholder farmer families owning, on average, less than 2 hectares. Despite its strategic location neighboring the country’s largest market, the Valley’s lack of job opportunities has driven many of the younger generation to migrate to the city.
The Valley has a unique geography that spans several microclimates, temperate, frost-free weather year round, and produces 80% of Bogota’s fresh water supply, nevertheless, a hectare of land for agricultural use rents at less than USD $300 a year, a reflection of the region’s agricultural crisis. Despite all these factors, farming and pride of place are still deeply woven into the social and cultural fabric of this community.
We inaugurated BioMio in the midst of the pandemic, in October 2020, convinced of how it would prove to be a resilient agricultural model that could change our neighbors’ economy. And it has. Furthermore, Colombia, still ravaged by COVID, faces a massive social crisis which started in May 2021 bringing the economy to a standstill blocking major transportation networks, sending food prices sky high along with food shortages. For the past two months, while food prices doubled in Bogota’s shops and markets, BioMio would deliver every week at the same price and quality. While city shelves were empty of any fresh produce, BioMio customers still enjoyed a freshly picked salad and BioMio farmers sold and delivered their harvest without a hitch. Now we are more convinced than ever of the need of such a model to strengthen our local economy.
BioMio’s subscription-based model turns the current agricultural economic system on its head. We take advantage of the region’s proximity to the nation’s largest commercial market, Bogota, where, following global trends, consumers have an interest in high quality, sustainable produce.
BioMio shares 60% of subscription sales with our farmer partners after covering all agricultural inputs, packaging, client relations, transportation, online platform and distribution costs. A smallholder farmer can easily provide for more than 30 BioMio client families by using only a third of a hectare and have a guaranteed income of around USD $600 per month, twice the monthly national minimum wage or almost 2,000% more than the annual rental of that same plot of land.
BioMio also reduces our carbon footprint and overhead costs in all areas. Our online platform provides smallholder farmers, with access to a secure, direct relationship with our client base. Regenerative agriculture reduces production costs, promotes local crop biodiversity, uses local inputs, fertilizers produced from waste products like manure, ash and whey, while strengthening our ecosystems. The use of organic fertilizers made from the farmer’s own waste reduces costs from 20 to 30%.
During these nine months we have developed two brand lines with over thirty different artisanal products. Using techniques based on local, traditional practices we have developed products for high end consumers that boost the profits of producers. This added value chain has a dramatic impact on producers’ revenue. For example, fruit crops that often go to waste as they fail to compete against imported fruit, bred for appearance rather than nutrition, are now transformed into high end spirits using local knowledge of artisan distillation tweaked with modern techniques and safety standards. Tiny apples that pack all the flavor but don’t have the looks are now transformed into Calvados, local plums into Kirsch and pears into Poire Williams. Excess milk that farmers cannot sell to the dairy industry due to high transport costs and lack of refrigeration now becomes artisanal Greek yogurt made with raw milk, a delicacy for urban consumers, rich in natural probiotics that commands a large mark up. Pork belly, sold locally at USD $1 per pound to be able to compete against subsidized imports, now becomes gourmet bacon, smoked with wood from the fruit orchards that went to waste and is sold at USD $12 per pound, a price that is competitive with bacon made industrially and sold in supermarkets in the city.
The techniques of smoking, fermenting and culturing have always been a part of the local culinary tradition, with BioMio we strengthen local processes adding strategic high-end market insights. Our artisanal products compliment our vegetable produce offer, increasingly fulfilling customer demand and cementing brand loyalty. BioMio seeks to become a one-stop shop for high quality, organic sustainable food, allowing us to gradually strengthen and transform our region and its agricultural practices. Currently with our our small client base of an average of 30 families per week, about 110 people in total, artisanal products already represent a 70 to 100% increase in BioMio sales benefitting the entire local production chain.
But not everyone wants to be a farmer. Or work the kitchen. We must aim to create a resilient, local economy as diverse as our vegetable gardens. Our meads, currently in development in partnership with local beekeepers, will not only provide higher profits than selling pure honey, but through the vast diversity of meads produced from a variety of flora at different altitudes in the valley, we are launching an experience, much like vineyard tours in California or France, called The Flight of the Bees.
Tourists can visit the producers and the beekeepers from the mountain peaks to the river valleys and taste the subtle floral differences from one mead to the next. They will experience the region’s wonderful geography while sampling the work of honeybees transformed into wine by locals. This creates an entirely new market economy that will provide new job opportunities for young and old, women and men, increasing the resiliency of our community. As a bonus we will boost the bee population, already suffering globally, while ensuring the environmental services it provides.
BioMio is also working alongside City Council members drafting a local policy project which was unanimously approved by the current administration that sets the guidelines for developing the region’s focus on culinary tourism. The project calls for the municipality to invest local funds in capacity-building, creating a certificate of origin, and developing and implementing marketing strategies and the required basic infrastructure.
Our region needs a resilient diverse economy with local solutions that are not subject to market prices and volatility. BioMio is creating a circular economy that takes advantage of a huge urban market by delivering our produce and artisanal products while at the same time, creating new local attractions that will bring the tourist to the region guaranteeing that resources spent will directly benefit the community. We are engaging the municipal government to take an active role in these endeavors to multiply the effect, all the while creating different lines of business with regenerative processes that actively strengthen our environment.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Create scalable economic opportunities for local communities, including fishing, timber, tourism, and regenerative agriculture, that are aligned with thriving and biodiverse ecosystemsExplain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.
BioMio creates opportunities for smallholder farmers, the majority of the region’s rural poor. Our subscription-based online model foregoes intermediaries, guarantees harvest sales and increases farmers’ income. Through regenerative agriculture the model reduces costs and carbon footprint by locally sourcing inputs, promoting crop biodiversity, and producing high quality organic produce.
We create a circular economy and diversify smallholders farmers’ income with innovative local artisanal products and culinary tourism strategies bringing in added revenue, making the most of crops that would otherwise sell cheaply or go to waste while encouraging new opportunities like beekeeping that further improve the health of our ecosystem.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Choachí, Cundinamarca, ColombiaExplain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.
BioMio has been publicly active for nine months, we have used this time to test the model and improve production and business practices. We have not invested in marketing as we wanted to ensure our model worked efficiently before expanding. Even with no marketing we have already reached our break even point. With only half a hectare of land cultivated, we supply an average of 30 client families, or 110 people weekly. We have secured two institutional clients, a local supermarket and a high-end restaurant. We have a team of 7 farmers, and an established relationship with 11 suppliers for raw material that ranges from goat’s milk, honey and organic eggs to native potatoes and tomatoes. We have developed over 30 artisanal gourmet products. Today, faced with an increasing demand from consumers and the lessons learnt from the past nine months, we are ready to scale up.
What is your solution’s stage of development?
Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth.Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Alexandra Posada: Executive Director, BioMio
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new business model or process that relies on technology to be successfulWhat makes your solution innovative?
BioMio transforms the way we purchase our food. Consumers are no longer paying for a head of lettuce at the supermarket or online retailer with all the risk, overhead or inequitable farmer’s share it entails. Our subscription-based model is a monthly investment that eliminates intermediaries, reduces carbon footprint, ensures crop biodiversity, soil regeneration and a fair and secure market for all. Soil analysis through chromatography allows us to track the rate of carbon sequestration and soil regeneration making our efforts tangible for the farmer, the community and the consumer. This subscription-based model drives more innovation such as niche market opportunities for artisanal food products.
Our online platform and social networks, purposely simple up until now that we have reached a point of inflection and are ready to grow our model, will become strategic tools of growth. We will create an immersive and educational online and social media experience where product shots will be replaced with aerial shots of the region where food is produced, intimate and eye-opening scenes of food production processes that showcase local talent and tradition and the stunning geography of the local region. A living virtual market where children and parents can not only choose their food but learn how it is grown and produced and the importance of having a sustainable process to achieve this.
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
Select the key characteristics of your target population.
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
Today:
Farmers and Family members: 35
Producers of Raw Materials and Families: 56
Household Consumers: 110
Institutional Clients (Family-Owned): 2
In One Year:
Farmers and Family members: 105
Producers of Raw Materials and Family members: 180
Household Consumers: 450
Institutional Clients: 20
In Five Years:
Farmers and Family members: 900
Producers of Raw Materials and Family members: 800
Household Consumers: 5,000
Institutional Clients: 45
How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?
SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES, CLIMATE ACTION AND LIFE ON LAND INDICATORS:
- Soil Regeneration and Carbon Sequestration Levels though chromatography measuring soil structure progress (levels of microbial growth, mineralization, carbon sequestration)
- Number of hectares converted to regenerative agriculture from traditional agriculture and promotion of local biodiversity (carbon sequestration and ecosystem resiliency)
- Crop diversity in a single hectare (ecosystem resiliency)
- Rain water harvesting methods installed (ecosystem resiliency)
- Number of crops grown from BioMio selected native varieties (strengthening of local crop varieties, cost reduction)
- Locally-sourced organic agricultural inputs vs non-regional organic agricultural inputs applied (reduction of carbon footprint)
ZERO HUNGER, NO POVERTY AND REDUCED INEQUALITY INDICATORS:
- Income received by farmers (total pay/hours worked) vs hourly wage for farm labor in the region vs average net income generated from single crop harvest sales/labor and investments from seed to harvest (zero poverty)
- Number of female BioMio farmers, artisanal suppliers and producers (reducing inequality)
- Investment in quality of life by BioMio farmers, suppliers and producers directly linked to BioMio income (e.g. home building, children's education, transport, or computer purchase, etc.)
- Number of vegetables and protein rich foods introduced in regular diet and rate of consumption in BioMio farmer family meals (zero hunger)
RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION
- Growth of fair and sustainable market through Increase of BioMio customer client base (responsible consumption)
- Percentage of plastic-free, recycled packaging used in delivery (responsible consumption and production)
- Carbon Footprint of produce deliveries (km from harvest to delivery)
- Increase of Local Produce Purchased from Smallholder farmers for Artisanal Production (responsible production)
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
How many people work on your solution team?
Full-time staff: 2
Part-time staff: 3
Farmer Partners: 7
Artisanal Production Partners: 3
Artisanal Suppliers: 8
Transport & Distribution Partners: 2
How long have you been working on your solution?
1.4 yrs: Development: 8 mths. ; Service to Public: 8.5 mths.
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Our team has a direct understanding of the context and needs of BioMio’s target community. We are full-time residents of the region and have an active role in its economic and political life while relying upon a wealth of diverse life-experiences.
As documentary filmmakers producing for channels such as BBC World and Discovery, we focus on social and environmental issues. (A trailer for one of our films: https://bit.ly/2SrN1wn)
As strategic communications experts, we create and execute awareness and action campaigns. In 2014, we created Soy Capaz, Colombia’s largest peace-building campaign enlisting the country’s private sector to work alongside communities affected by armed conflict rebuilding much needed infrastructure as a tool for reconciliation (https://bit.ly/2TmkpF2). Other campaigns include promoting food biodiversity (https://bit.ly/2SgVNgN) and strategic alliances across diverse social groups.
As sustainable builders, we built Colombia’s first recycled tire house in BioMio's region, attracting interest from local and foreign media (https://bit.ly/3varlCh). We funded an independent political movement that participated in Choachi’s 2019 local elections gaining a seat in the town council (https://bit.ly/2Sp6zRZ).
Through SanAgro, our organic agricultural input production partners also based in the region, we have an impressive network of local farmers that have transitioned to organic production bringing to light strategies needed to transform our landscape into a sustainable one.
Through our financial founding partners, Objective Finance, we have the support of specialists in environmental financial services such as structuring access to carbon credit markets a key long term goal for BioMio.
What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership team?
We believe in the power of experience. We believe that a worldview is as necessary as a local perspective. And our team reflects that. It is composed of both men and women, some who were born and raised in the region, others are recent arrivals. Our standards are simple, everyone must lead by example and we strive to achieve gender inclusion and equality in all aspects of our work.
Our guiding principle is participation. Colombia, like many other countries in the region, has a long history of conflict and above all, a lack of a common purpose. The common good is an alien concept. After decades of colonization and sharp social, racial and economic divisions, we live in a society where the concept of nationhood, or even of society itself, depends almost exclusively on your background or social station. It is very difficult to find solutions to shared problems such as economic inequality, environmental degradation and climate change if we do not have a notion of why sharing a common purpose is important.
BioMio has engaged with local politics, it has engaged with the dynamics of local communities and above all, it presents itself as a solution to the main problems shared by this community, problems that are similar to communities throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. We are striving for solutions that are market based, environmentally sustainable, community run and above all, based on the local characteristics that are able to compete in a global market.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?
Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)Why are you applying to Solve?
Smallholder farmers can play a crucial role in establishing sustainable food systems. 98% of the world's agricultural holdings are 10 hectares or less. Almost all of these small farms are in developing countries, where they support around 2 billion people. Our experience filming development projects around the world has left us with one clear lesson: there is a vast amount of knowledge and experience yet having access to that know-how is often difficult. For example, our work with organizations like the International Potato Center, part of the CGIAR network, showed us how a potato scientist on a consulting visit to southern China was quick to point out to local farmers that the main problem they had with their crop was a lack of potassium at the right part of the growth cycle. A simple solution that increased their harvest by 30% and made the difference between profit and loss. Knowledge and experience applied to a local context is often the difference between success and failure. Good ideas are not difficult to come by, but applying them successfully requires application and lessons learnt from others. Solve is an ideal platform to share such experiences, hit upon the nugget of knowledge and experience that can reap multiple benefits and overcome seemingly difficult challenges, and open doors to our own experience to help benefit communities in other parts of the world.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Please explain in more detail here.
We need to adjust our business model to our future stages of growth. We are creating partnerships with local governments in the different municipalities of the region, a religious order that wants to let us use their land and buildings as a base for BioMio and we are developing culinary tourism strategies with the families producing artisanal products.
Public relations have been key to our success. When catering to demanding consumers with freshly picked produce and artisanal products we have found that the three secrets are a personal touch, more of a personal touch and then even more of a personal touch. This is demanding and time consuming and as we expand we need to make sure we can maintain that feeling.
Monitoring and evaluation is vital so we can prove to a farming community not always open to change that the model works and can be expanded to other municipalities. Our Sanagro partners achieve this through soil analysis and carbon sequestration yet there are obviously other indicators we should monitor and evaluate.
Our model is based on the weekly delivery of freshly harvested and produced items. We aim to do this leaving the minimum possible carbon footprint and previous experiences can help us achieve this.
Finally, as we gear up to creating an online ‘field market’ where consumers can visit virtually where and how their food is being produced, we will need technological support to create a truly immersive experience that changes the way our clients shop.
What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?
Access to knowledge and experience as we prepare to grow is always vital. As documentary film makers around the world we have witnessed too many times how challenges could be overcome if projects had access to the right knowledge that someone, somewhere already had.
span class="Apple-converted-space"> We want our website to feature a map not only of geography, but of humanity and how we grow and produce our food.
As we strive to create a model that combines efficient and sustainable food production and artisanal products that transform the lives of the community while satisfying consumer demands we can also rely on the experience of Solve members such as The Nature Conservancy and UNEP. At a local level, the input of the Universidad de los Andes, less than an hour away from this region could be helpful.
Solve members include a who’s who of major corporations and multinational companies and institutions. We are keenly aware that our model can work in regions that share similar geographic and socio economic conditions as ours but that potential success requires a detailed knowledge of highly localized cultural realities and any input on this would be welcome.
Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.
No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution
Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The GM Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.
Yes, I wish to apply for this prize
Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The GM Prize to advance your solution?
Everything about BioMio is aligned with the vision of creating smart, safe and sustainable communities. Smallholder farmers need to find a way to compete with large scale agro industry and our solution targets consumer demand to achieve this. Small rural communities that provide most of the world’s food need to get a fair return for their work if they are going to create a safe environment for the future, especially in a country ravaged by political violence for decades and in a particular region that was greatly affected by the conflict with illegal armed groups. Sustainable production methods are also key to regenerating our ecosystems while enabling farmers to make a living.
span class="Apple-converted-space"> If producers and consumers do not understand the processes involved in food production then their methods, both in production and in their choice of purchase will be based on economics alone and that no longer makes sense. Science is key in understanding the transformation of products through natural processes, be it through smoking, fermentation or the like. Maths is the basis of sound economic decisions and future planning. Engineering is the way we make our production processes efficient and technology is at the heart of how we make our model successful.
We may not be planning to go to space but rural communities are so far behind in the application of STEM based knowledge that we would use the funds from the prize to start to level the playing field. Every project and every community needs a center of gravity that represents their vision of the future and what they want to achieve. We are entering an agreement with a religious order to use a former seminary in a prime location as the headquarters of BioMio for at least the next two decades. The seminary would become the training center for members of the project and a major tourist attraction for our client base and other visitors keen to see how we grow our food using regenerative agriculture and how we process our high value artisan products, from wine to cheese, from smoked bacon to unique chili sauces and from jams made from wild fruits to chocolate from unique cocoa varieties.
This prize would be instrumental in equipping and transforming the former seminary into such a training and visitor center that would become a source of pride for the local community and the heart of the transformation we are achieving.
Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for the Innovation for Women Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.
Yes, I wish to apply for this prize
Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use the Innovation for Women Prize to advance your solution?
It is unfortunately well established that Latin America has one of the worst levels of gender inequality. In rural regions of Colombia this is even worse. More by accident than by design, the pilot stage of BioMio has shown that innovation and the search for alternative answers to the region’s decades of stagnation lies in women. While men tend to hold on to tradition and the security of how things have always been done, women are much more open to new opportunities and methods. In BioMio, our lead distiller of fruit based liquors, our head of processing and packaging of artisanal products and our chief supplier of dairy are all women. They have embraced the model not only because they have seen the financial benefits, but because they understand that customer satisfaction makes sense and is a logical avenue to achieve growth.
Models based on consumer demand, several production lines of artisanal products, dozens of third party providers and the correct application of regenerative agriculture techniques that ensure a constant crop of over 30 varieties require a sound knowledge of science and technology. As we expand we will need local women associated with BioMio to be the protagonists of our web based platform and to understand what we need from the apps we develop to facilitate the logistics of our model. We would use the funds of the prize for training of our women partners in food science, technological innovation related to distribution models, regenerative agriculture and web platforms.
Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for the Minderoo Prize to End Global Overfishing? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.
No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution
Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The ServiceNow Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.
Yes, I wish to apply for this prize
Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The ServiceNow Prize to advance your solution?
Food production is responsible for a quarter of humanity’s carbon emissions and global warming is perhaps the key challenge we face as a species. Yet in the vast majority of agricultural communities based on smallholder farming, such as the one where BioMio is based, the concepts of carbon absorption and decarbonization are as alien as Mars. Need transport? Use diesel trucks because its cheaper. Need competitive crops? Use pesticides and fertilizers imported from the US and China with a massive carbon footprint. Need to package your produce? Use tons of plastic. Need to prepare land for crops? Glyphosate pesticides are the first thing that come to mind.
span class="Apple-converted-space"> We find that around 50% of our clients actively engage in any practice we follow that promotes carbon absorption and decarbonization. We demonstrate by example, how actively participating in reducing our carbon footprint can also represent considerable economic benefits. For smallholder farmers that equation is not alien.
We would use the funds from the prize to improve our monitoring and evaluation of carbon absorption throughout our production lines, be it our produce grown using regenerative agriculture increasing soil regeneration, to all the processes in our different lines of artisanal products. We would then start a series of workshops to show our participants how carbon absorption leads to higher profits and embark on the political process to declare this municipality a carbon neutral region, despite the fact that agriculture is the main activity.
Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The AI for Humanity Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.
No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution
Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The GSR Prize Prize to advance your solution?
One of the most pressing problems in our community is the constantly eroding value of a smallholder farmer's labor. Blockchain has demonstrated how value is a perception that relies on people deciding that something can be an instrument that is worth exchanging. That tulips were worth more than their weight in gold in 17th century Europe is an example of how values can change. How we grow and transform food should be something of extreme value. Not just for large scale agro industry, but also for the millions of smallholder farmers that provide most of humanity’s nourishment.
For centuries these smallholder farmers have lagged behind the use of technology and data to be able to compete in one of the harshest markets in the modern economy. And for decades consumers have made purchasing decisions without information on the consequences of their actions. BioMio wants to change the shopping experience providing a digital platform that becomes an interactive map that enables our clients to see not only where their food comes from and how it is produced, but also the impact of their purchasing decisions. A platform that brings them closer to their food provider and shows the environmental and social impact of their decisions. We don’t just ingest food, we eat stories, and the story behind every product we offer is extraordinary. We would invest the funds of GSR prize in developing the platform that would make this possible.
Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The GSR Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.
Yes, I wish to apply for this prize
Solution Team
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Ms Alexandra Posada CEO BioMio, BioMio
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Solution Name:
BioMio