MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

La Ceinture Verte (LCV)

One-line solution summary:

Digital toolbox for small organic growers where they can share best practices and continuously improve their performance

Pitch your solution.

As older farmers massively enter retirement age, a new generation of eco-conscious farmers is called for duty. Most of them are new to agriculture and will fail, overwhelmed by the complexity of farming, though conditions and, often, a feeling of loneliness.

LCV provides a suite of digital tools that significantly increases their chances to succeed by giving them access to:

1. Knowledge: free professional grade online encyclopedia on organic farming edited by a community of first-class contributors, through a model of open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system.

2. Community: farmers join a community of supportive peers located around the globe, with whom they can interact through public forums or private messages.

3. Analytics: a mobile Application allows farmers to monitor and improve their performance in the field by analyzing their yield and productivity.

LCV brings together an unvaluable common for mankind but also significantly contributes to food system resilience.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

50% of French farmers will get retired over the next 10 years. If we don’t do anything, their freed lands will keep summing up to already extensive farms (fewer farms but bigger farms), often promoting mechanised agriculture heavily depending on chemicals for fertilization and protection.

Or we can try to do something and help a new generation of eco-conscious farmers, often new to agriculture, access and successfully cultivate these lands according to agro-ecological principles. This means reconnecting with soil and local communities, opting for low tech labor intensive techniques (instead of extensive mechanised techniques) and short distribution channels.

However, despite their high level of motivation, most of them will fail or quit after a while, overwhelmed by the complexity of farming activity, poor economic and working conditions and, often, a feeling of loneliness. In France, half of new installed farmers fail over the first five years.

LCV provides digital tools that support them and maximize their chances to succeed providing them with what these newcomers lack: step-by-step guidelines and priceless information on tools and techniques, support from the community and improvement suggestions validated by experienced farms to rapidly boost their yield and profitability in order to reach greater sustainability.

What is your solution?

LCV provides a suite of digital tools that support organic farmers in their daily tasks in three complementary ways:

1. Knowledge: the platform gathers a free multilingual and multimedia online encyclopedia on organic farming edited by a community of volunteer contributors selected amongst best-in-class specialists (experienced farmers, advisors, researchers), through a model of open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Farmers get access to professional-grade content covering technical guidelines, techniques and tools. Instead of promoting a unique approach, it allows for multiple views when relevant and content is automatically filtered to fit farmer’s specific context (soil, climate, equipment, workforce).

2. Community: by registering, farmers join a community of peers located around the globe and within their region, willing to share their field experiences and best practices.

3. Analytics: a mobile Application allows farmers to monitor their performance in the field by measuring their yield and productivity for each crop. It uses simple connected objects to gather data and interact with busy farmers in the most non-intrusive and easy-to-use way. They can compare their performance against peers and over seasons and, more importantly, spot areas of improvement.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

A new generation of organic farmers is called for duty. Most of them are new to agriculture (young graduates or middle aged professionals looking for a change in their professional and personal lifes). They usually aim at reconnecting themselves with soil and their community and opt for low tech labor intensive techniques and short distribution channels (direct sales, CSA schemes and specialized organic retail).

They usually focus on finding the perfect piece of land for their project, which is quite a challenge per se as farming land is scarce and usually trusted by extensive farmers who are very keen at getting bigger and bigger. But in the process, they usually underestimate the complexity of farming activity and rapidly get overwhelmed by all the things you need to know and master to be able to cultivate 30+ different crops along the year.

This is where LCV digital toolbox enters the game. Freshly installed farmers get access to a unique one-stop knowledge base where they get practical info on how to proceed crop by crop and step by step. This content is not only theoretical but has been validated by experienced farmers who have effectively followed provided guidelines. And more important, the content is contextualized to adapt to the very specific environment of the farmer in terms of nature of soil, climate, level of equipment and available workforce.

By using LCV digital tools, young farmers do not only gain confidence in their practice, they can also rely on a supportive community of experienced farmers willing to help and share their experience. Public forums, private chats and notifications keep you connected 24 x 7 to farmers around the globe but also within your region.

Finally, LCV suite comes with an App that allows farmers to gather useful data on their performance, which allows them to compare themselves objectively with their peers and spot areas of improvement in order to move up the learning curve more rapidly and reach greater sustainability (yield and productivity).

LCV mission as a group is to unlock access to the land for newcomers to agriculture and help them start their activity rapidly by providing them with turnkey equipped farms and coaching. As such, the digital tools we present in our solution will naturally be deployed amongst LCV farmers but will also be available for free for farmers outside LCV network.

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 ecosystems

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

Organic micro-farming located nearby cities does not only preserve the environment (very little mechanisation, no chemicals, no long distance transportation) but also regenerates the lost link between farmers and their communities (through CSA schemes for example).

We are not saying that we will feed the world only with micro-farms but it could reasonably cover 5-10% of vegetable needs (which means 100+ micro-farms for a city with a population of 200k). More importantly this is what consumers and newcomers to agriculture are looking for (in France, 30% to 50% of new farmers have a micro-farm project).

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Romans-sur-Isère, France

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

The solution is supported and developed by La Ceinture Verte (LCV), a company established in 2020.

LCV provides French local communities with a turnkey solution to install tens of micro-farms around their city centers and help them rapidly reach economical sustainability. We basically overcome three barriers:

Unlocking access to lands for newcomers to agriculture
Financing and building performing farming infrastructures (irrigation + building + greenhouses)
Coaching young farmers with the help of experienced farmers

Six medium size cities will be up and running by the end of 2021. We aim at creating 250+ farms per year by 2027.

As our farms go through their first growing season, we have identified the need for a common such as the digital solution presented here. We are currently prototyping a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of the platform that we will test in real conditions with our first 10 farms.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Greg Bulckaert, multi-entrepreneur