Nedspice is a privately-owned group of companies with worldwide activities in the sourcing, processing, and distribution of spices, herbs, and dehydrated vegetables. Nedspice is headquartered in the Netherlands and operates processing facilities in India and Vietnam. Sales offices, warehouses, and distribution facilities are located in the Netherlands, India, Vietnam, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and China. Nedspice has a Farmers Partnership Programme (NFPP) that trains farmers to make their cultivation practices more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. Through training and on-farm support, they help to develop sustainable and profitable farms that produce high-quality and safe spices. Over 4,000 farmers have enrolled in this program covering over 22,000 ha of land across multiple crops. Challenge Nedspice is not new to the application of technologies in agriculture.  They were using very extensive farm management software from a pioneer in the industry.  However, there were many gaps in their expectations. Complicated data collection system: Field Executives found the mobile application too complicated to use.  This led to huge backlogs in data capture, defeating the whole purpose of the software. Privacy and Security of farmers’ data: Data privacy and security is of utmost importance for Nedspice and non-negotiable.  The supplier of the software they were using had to keep all the data on their own server.  For Nedspice this is a potential risk to the privacy and security of their data. Too much data gathering: The software system they were using asked the field executives to collect a lot of field data.  Many of these data were not used at all in any of their reports or analysis.  This was a waste of resources. Difficulty in tracking movement of the Field Executive: Nedspice was finding it difficult to look into the daily activities of their field staff. Lack of customization: Nedspice has evolved a unique system of working with farmers and has created its own farm practice recommendations based on years of experience and research.  The existing software did not allow Nedspice to fully utilize the potential of its knowledge base. Solution Data on Nedspice’s own server: All data are stored only on the server owned by Nedspice.  This ensures 100% control over the data by Nedspice. Simplified geo-tagging/geofencing so that the field executive did not have to walk around 2-10 hectares of land in the sun Very intuitive screens for data collection. Data collection from a farm now completed in less than a minute. Collected only those data that would help in decision making Visit Module: Field executives log in using the NFPP mobile app when they visit a farmer by taking a picture with the farmer.  This picture is geolocation and the time is stamped into the picture automatically, helping in making detailed analysis regarding the visits. Solution provided mirrored all of Nedspice’s processes and systems Provided all reports that Nedspice management wanted and in their formats Software is customized to Nedspice. Approach Corbel did not get down to creating a software solution. The Corbel team traveled to the farms under the Nedspice’s program and spent days with the farmers and the field executives. We discussed with the Management team for clarity on the below points: Their expectations from this program Critical factors affecting the success of the program Deviation indicators Control points Working backward: Based on the inputs from the farmers, field executives, and the requirements from the management team, we worked out a system highly focused and customized to Nedspice’s requirements: Result Nedspice is the owner of all their data. No data sitting on any external server. Nedspice has custom-configured software meeting 100% of their requirements. Data collection from the field happens smoothly and on time. Reduces time and energy spent on reminders and follow-ups. Field Executives are now able to spend more time-solving farmer problems than worrying about data entry into the mobile app. Decision-making is faster and real-time. The visit report module gives full control to the manager over the field executives’ visits.

AB Mauri is a wholly owned subsidiary of Associated British Foods plc, a global player in the Food and Food Service arena with a consolidated annual turnover of over US $20 Billion and 130,000 employees.  AB Mauri is one of the world leaders in processing and exporting a variety of customised spices, spice blends and seasonings solutions to customers all over the world for more than 25 years. The high quality of products demanded by their global customers, AB Mauri has to participate with the farmers on the farm activities to ensure a steady supply of raw material grown under AB Mauri’s control.  Their unique PCP Chillies (Pesticide Control Program), spread in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka is a sustainable approach to managing pests by combining biological, cultural, physical and chemical tools in a way that minimizes economic, health and environmental risks." The PCP uses practices that contribute to crop protection for the long term. These include: Biological controls Crop rotation Host plant resistance Sanitation Site selection Challenge Being part of a global leader in the food industry AB Mauri has to be very careful in choosing a vendor to automate their farmer operations.  The vendor has to first pass stringent scrutiny at multiple levels in their corporate system.  The challenges they were facing were: Manage the large database of their farmers Not all field staff were proficient in English Define, implement and monitor farm activities based on the package of practice developed by them through years of experience and trials. Automate the farmer diary Track robustness of farm visits by their field staff Identification and control of pests and diseases at the field level itself. Solution Provided a farm management app tailored to AB Mauri’s systems. Created a mobile application that displays content in local language Field Staff can record their trips through the mobile app when they do farm visits Approach Study of the process followed by AB Mauri in their Pest Control Program. Customise Trace AgTech to reflect all of AB Mauri’s requirements Provide a template to enter translation of content into any language Enable AB Mauri to list farm activities against which data are to be captured