Farmers Pick

An agricultural investing service targeting farmers in underserved communities wanting to establish a standard of living by setting commercial agreements between farmers and big-box retailers to create more sustainable farms. 

The program will launch its initiative in Liberia, where climate is excellent for agriculture but there is a lack of resources and land management to produce efficiently. Hence, our company comes in to provide these farmers who are below the poverty line with the necessary tools and knowledge to become self-sufficient landowners. Once our consumers are educated and become equipped to use their products to cater to a greater market, we introduce potential wholesalers who are interested in collaborating with small farm producers in which our program creates a commercial agreement between both parties. 

Approximately 3 million people make their primary livelihood from the agricultural industry, and most of these people live below the poverty line. Many of these farmers live within underdeveloped countries whose economy lacks in movement and growth, causing them to not have the proper resources to upscale their land. Furthermore, our program wishes to start in Liberia where roughly 40% of its local rice needs and 60% of its cassava needs are produced; thus, this provides a promising margin of growth considering the excellent quality of weather conditions Liberia has. 

Our solution would serve farmers within underserved communities, enabling them to earn a standard of living and become better equip to manage their land. Farmers within these communities, such as those in Liberia, do not have the access to proper technology, farming education/technical terminology and basic resources to produce crops efficiently and make a decent amount of a profit. Thus, our solution would address the gaps that these farmers are missing in order to reach maximum productivity by providing them with the skills and tools to apply through there farmland and become a greater asset to potential wholesalers, school districts and hospitals.  

Our team has conducted research on local farmers who currently are in agreement with wholesalers and retailers. We targeted this particular group of individuals in order to simulate financially how our program would operate while into consideration our prospective capital and investment availability when we launch. In addition, we surveyed these farmers and asked them whether they would have been interested in our service prior to finding a wholesaler to create a contract with. 

Our solution would be best placed in the "concept" stage of development as we have recently pitched our idea and business model to group of business professionals at our university. With the feedback given, we have been able to make such adjustments to our solution and believe we have proceed to the following stage where we beginning to creating a prototype to survey. 

In order for our solution to properly take into effect we must use farming machinery and technologies to efficiently use the land and produce as efficiently as possible. Additionally, for logistics and consulting purposes basic technological such as software and communication equipment for offices. 

Farmers Pick has not launched yet, but we have set a target in terms of the volume of people be plan to serve in the upcoming year. For our first year of operations, we plan on reaching out to 25 farmers in the first month and finishing the year with a total of 65 farmers. 

We aspire to ensure that all farmers we hope to target within the first year are set with stable contracts, to boost the economy of Liberia while pushing more individuals within the community above the poverty line and beginning to establish a trademark to spread awareness on the cause we are attempting to support. In order to execute these goals, we will use our expertise to hiring the most knowledge and well experienced employees to assist our customers, revising our financial strategies based on the progress the programs makes in order to achieve economic wealth and apply marketing strategies towards our trademark that will aid to solving world hunger. 

We plan on measuring the program's progress through a 25% growth rate after every month within the first year of operations. This rate will apply toward  our capital, finances and clientele. Indicators of sustainability, economic growth and communal hunger within Liberia will display the impact of our program within the nation and allow us to detail areas of further improvement. 

Financial barriers including startup costs, legal barrier with the Liberian government and cultural barriers may set our program behind. Without a initial investment our program cannot move forward, however shall we not receive an investment the company would move to another alternative which includes taking out a loan. Governmental issues may arise if values of the program do not align with governing official, yet Liberia does propose the use of "communal land" for the proposes of bettering the nation. Finally, cultural barriers may be our prevalent concern as our targeting customer may disagree with our business model. 

The Farmer's Pick team consists of four young women currently studying within the fields of economics, logistics, communications, international business and finance. Our experiences in work tie closely to what we are studying such as working in corporate offices and managing financial accounts. Our team came together and created Farmers Pick because we all come from backgrounds that tie closely to third-world countries. Having our ancestry come from poor communities that lack in resources and economic prosperity, we decided to initiate a solution that could cure these issues through agriculture (a primary source of income for our families) within the  countries we consider our second homes. 

Since we have not launched yet, we are currently not partnering with any organizations. 

Our team of young women aspires to bring sustainability and economic wealth underserved communities through a agricultural investing program. The ultimate mission of the program is to aid global issues such as the limitation citizens of third-world countries have in terms of occupational opportunities, communal hunger and poverty. The HP Girls Save the World Prize will help advance your solution by allowing us to expand to more communities in need and establishing a trademark for all the products we ship out to wholesalers.   

Our team of young women aspires to bring sustainability and economic wealth underserved communities through a agricultural investing program. The ultimate mission of the program is to aid global issues such as the limitation citizens of third-world countries have in terms of occupational opportunities, communal hunger and poverty. The Pozen Social Innovation Prize will help advance your solution by allowing us to expand to more communities in need and establishing a trademark for all the products we ship out to wholesalers.