When small vegetable growers and fruit growers, large export companies and one international development organization came together, in just one year we got digitalized farmers and products for export to picky markets. The project to improve the competitiveness of individual farmers is funded by the United States Agency for International Development.
Production is monitored from seed to shelf. The coordinates of the agricultural plots-participants of the project are drawn on the digital map, and at any moment it is known how much land is cultivated, how many crops there are and how many workers work.
Farmers themselves, through the most modern software installed in their phone or computer, enter data on the state of the genus, protection, nutrition, spraying, and pesticides every day. Also, analyzes of soil and water are performed periodically, and at the end of the fruit itself.
“Well, the main advantage for me as a producer and investor in that is the control of costs, where the factual situation is that before that electronic control we did not have a real insight into the cost of production,” says Radivoje Stojkovic, a vegetable grower from the village of Chokot near Nis.
Zvonko Lazarevic, a vegetable grower from the village of Odzaci near Trstenik, says that it helps them for further placement of goods.
“For example, when it comes to exports, I issue that order with which I treated that product. I started with a hectare and a half of my land and now I have expanded it to ten hectares,” says Lazarevic.
So far, respecting these measures, 32 producers have received the Global gap standard for as many as 12 vegetable products, and two producers for tomatoes and peppers have been certified with the standard that guarantees a pesticide-free product.
“We are talking about the standards required by our foreign partners. The goal is to increase the number of goods that will be available for offer to over 10,000 tons of goods,” said Dusan Nikolic from Delta Agrar.
The project to improve the competitiveness of individual farmers was funded by USAID.
“It is about supporting agricultural producers from municipalities such as Trstenik, Krusevac, Lebane, Leskovac. The project will continue in 2021, but on this occasion we will focus especially on the least developed areas,” said Zlatko Jovanovic from USAID.
Therefore, a broadband network will be useful, which will include 600 settlements in the most remote areas, and whose construction, according to the announcements from the Ministry of Tourism and Telecommunications, will begin this year.
Thus, even farmers in the least developed places will be able, thanks to the Internet, to get involved in such projects, RTS reports.
