First of all, organisation a “Krutu’’ will be an easy way to approach farmers and talk about our initiative. A Krutu is an informal way of gathering many people together and talk about certain ideas and statements. The Farmer Forecast may be a perfect idea to help farmers in some perspective but, farmers maybe do not like it? Or farmers do not like the way it is announced on the radio? Or it does not contain the information that is needed for the farmers? Those are all questions, which need answers so we can develop an even better product. To get this essential feedback, one way to get these answers could be organising a Krutu event.
To do organise such an event, there needs to be a location, food, drinks, locals and transportation. During the internship there will be made contact with Farmerline to talk about how to invite the farmers. Will this be done by sending them an SMS, a personal letter or personally visit them and invite them. Food and drinks can be arranged with collaboration with Farmerline, at this moment of time we do not know what is the best option to serve the locals.
After the Krutu event, there will be made a review, what topics were considered and how the locals reacted on them. Were they good? Were they bad? Or were they not meeting the needs of the farmers? By doing this, the product we deliver will be finetuned. Which is good for us, the producer, and of course the consumer.
Second of all, there needs to be a medium to broadcast the Farmer Forecast. In first case setting up an own radio station was the idea. However, this could be too risky to execute, because licenses are needed and a FM space needs to be purchased to broadcast.
It is therefore easier to collaborate with existing radio stations which will broadcast the Farmer Forecast. From these existing radio stations we need to find out to which one the farmers listen too. Not too forget, which of these radio stations have the best transmitting quality and range.
Probably after talking to some of the radio stations in the Kumasi region where most of the farmers are located. It could be that some radio stations agree to transmit the Farmer Forecast, we need to think which to trust and maybe it is possible that there will be more than one radio station which will transmit Farmer Forecast. The most beneficial way is that the radio stations will transmit it for free, so that they have more listeners. These are all scenarios; in this phase we do not know how this idea will develop.
The third key activity, is to translate the raw data that is gathered by the weather stations into understandable language weather data. How the raw data is gathered, sampled, stored is not clear yet. However, one thing is clear. There is need for
translating the data into understandable language. Also it is possible to apply an algorithm that makes it easier to sort the data and translate it to an understandable language. This will be achieved in collaboration with Farmerline. Farmerline understands the data better and have programmers which we could help to brainstorm to achieve an algorithm that solves the metadata into pieces.
The LBCs are the organisations that buy the cocoa from the farmers. They benefit from the bigger harvest farmers get with use of the Farmer Forecast they hear on the radio. Therefore, if the LBCs are the party to pay to broadcast the Farmer Forecast on the radio as a kind of advertisement. For them this will be an active social media presence. Not to forget, companies must take the lead in bringing business and society back together [Porter, 2011]. In this way the radio brings over weather forecast relevant for farmer society, the LBC has a positive active social media presence by doing something back for the farmers and the farmer society is able to harvest in an optimal way.
The fourth key activity is to talk with LBCs, which one of them is ready to do something back for the farmers and the farmer society. Telling them how the product – Farmer Forecast – will have a positive effect on the LBC name and image.
The fifth and last key activity is to start a cocoa farmer database. This could be further developed on the database Farmerline already has of farmers that are already ordering data from Farmerline. This to make an overview of cocoa farmers, with their numbers and location. This could be a good idea, to see which farmers sells to which LBC and how much the capacity of the farmer is to produce cocoa. Also in this way we can measure how much more the farmers produce with help of the Farmer Forecast.