Tailoring Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant to West Africa

Context

The agricultural sector, vital for millions of livelihoods and food security worldwide, faces a critical threat: climate vulnerability. While pre-harvest initiatives like drought-resistant seeds and irrigation are essential, they only address part of the challenge. In Africa, inadequate storage and transportation result in post-harvest food losses exceeding 30 percent, reducing food accessibility and cutting farmer incomes. Globally, post-harvest losses are estimated to reduce farm incomes by 15 percent, affecting 480 million smallholder farmers. This income loss is likely even more severe in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).

To enhance post-harvest cooling and management in West Africa, Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant (Your VCCA) will first conduct a market assessment to map smallholder farmers’ cooling needs and develop a business model for the sustainable deployment of cooling solutions in Guinea-Bissau. This model can then be replicated in neighbouring countries.

Guinea-Bissau, with its fertile lands and favourable climate, has significant agricultural potential. However, it relies heavily on cashew exports, which make up to 95 percent of its export earnings, exposing the economy to market risks. Climate change exacerbates these issues with rising temperatures (reaching a maximum of 39.3°C during the hotter seasons) and unpredictable rainfall, causing yield fluctuations, rural emigration, and constant farming adaptations.

Diversifying production to include more fruits and vegetables is crucial for economic resilience and regional food security. Despite robust agricultural activity, 70-80 percent of the population lives in poverty. Women play key roles on farms but own only 24.4 percent of the land, limiting their economic gains and participation in the agricultural value chain.

The West African region presents an important opportunity for solutions and projects that go beyond pre-harvest and harvesting phases. By prioritising post-harvest infrastructure and robust market linkages alongside productivity-enhancing initiatives for farmers, projects like Your VCCA can ensure high-quality fresh produce reaches consumers. Better post-harvest management increases food and nutrition security and generates profitable returns for farmers and small-scale traders, enabling reinvestment and fostering a sustainable cycle of improved livelihoods.

Project

In a bid to strengthen food and nutrition security and resilience in Guinea-Bissau, Your VCCA addresses gaps in the post-harvest phase of agricultural activities. By complementing existing initiatives focused on enhancing local food production, storage, and distribution with accessible and affordable cooling solutions, Your VCCA aims to significantly minimise post-harvest losses and ensure a more reliable supply of fresh produce.

Your VCCA adopts a targeted approach, prioritising the often-overlooked fruits and vegetables value chain. This focus has a three-pronged benefit: improved food and nutritional security, increased income opportunities for farmers through diversified production, and a more resilient agricultural sector better equipped to handle climate change.

Your VCCA acknowledges the importance of understanding the specific context in Guinea-Bissau. To ensure the project’s effectiveness and cater to the unique needs of local communities, a comprehensive feasibility and market assessment will be conducted. This assessment will focus on two key areas: understanding the current practices and needs of smallholder farmers regarding post-harvest management, and exploring the potential for various cooling solutions, taking into account multiple factors. The project will examine the types of crops typically grown in the area to choose the most compatible cooling method. Additionally, it will map the flow of crops from farms to markets and the type of cooling users to be served (smallholder farmers, small-scale traders, aggregators, large-scale traders) to determine the most strategic locations for cooling units. Finally, the assessment will explore the availability of local resources to determine the feasibility of implementing low-cost passive cooling solutions at scale. This in-depth analysis ensures Your VCCA can tailor its approach, strategically positioning active cooling units and leveraging passive solutions where appropriate, to maximise the project’s overall impact.

Recognising the critical role of long-term sustainability, Your VCCA goes beyond simply deploying cooling solutions. The project understands the need for an ecosystem that fosters widespread adoption. Since Guinea-Bissau currently lacks established cooling companies, Your VCCA will proactively engage to build this ecosystem, including the installation of at least one active cooling unit. A clear governance structure will be established to guide decision-making and ensure smooth operation of cooling units. Finally, a financially sustainable business model will be designed and implemented. This comprehensive approach fosters collaboration, transparency, and long-term success for Your VCCA and the communities it serves.

Your VCCA has successfully mainstreamed agricultural cooling in similar contexts in LMIC through three key pillars. The first pillar, Cooling-as-a-Service addresses the challenges of traditional business models based on asset ownership by allowing farmers to access cold storage on a per-day, per-use model. In this model,  cooling companies set up and manage solar-powered cold storage units on a pay-per-use basis, relieving farmers of the burden of upfront investments and operational costs. In the case of Guinea-Bissau, the potential of the servitisation model will be assessed, tailored to the local needs and adjusted to ensure the sustainable operation of cooling units.

Your VCCA recognises that long-term success hinges on building strong local capacity in post-harvest care and handling to empower different stakeholders. Regularly updated training materials equip cold room operators with the knowledge to manage multi-commodity facilities, ensuring optimal storage conditions for various crops. For farmers, capacity-building sessions raise awareness about cooling, its benefits for their produce, and its potential to boost their income.

In contexts where cooling solutions may be unfamiliar, Your VCCA recognises the importance of ensuring ease of operation and building trust with local communities. To address this, the project has designed a free-to-use app called Coldtivate. This data-science-based app leverages real-time sensor data from the cold rooms to allow farmers and cooling companies to remotely monitor the shelf-life of their produce. Coldtivate also includes impact monitoring that empowers both sides: cooling companies optimise services with unit revenue and performance data, while farmers refine practices with post-harvest loss and sales insights.

To ensure Coldtivate’s effectiveness, Your VCCA will pilot the app across three locations in Guinea-Bissau. This pilot phase focuses on understanding and adapting the app’s usability to local realities. Specifically, the project will explore tailoring the app to work seamlessly on feature phones and SMS-based systems, which are more widely used in these communities. Further, the project will work towards including visual and audio aids in local languages to overcome literacy barriers and extend the shelf-life model (currently available for 26 crops) to include local crops.

Impact

Your VCCA aims to achieve tangible results with a focus on long-term sustainability of the deployed cooling solutions. Here are the key expected impacts:

– Needs Assessment and Sustainable Solutions: Extensive feasibility studies involving at least 2,000 farmers will inform the selection criteria for decentralised cold storage solutions. These solutions will prioritise sustainability and cater to local needs and contexts.

– Collaborative Ecosystem and Governance: A robust ecosystem of stakeholders and a well-defined governance structure will ensure the project’s pilot phase is well-prepared and successful.

– Deployment of Cooling Infrastructure: The decentralised cooling units will be equipped with hygrothermal sensors and connected to the Coldtivate mobile app for remote monitoring.

– Capacity Building and Awareness: Training programs and awareness materials will reach at least 1,500 beneficiaries, empowering them with the knowledge and skills necessary to utilise the cold storage solutions effectively.

– Reduced Post-Harvest Losses, Increased Revenue: By tailoring storage solutions to local needs and promoting proper cold storage utilisation, Your VCCA expects to see a significant reduction in post-harvest losses, leading to increased income for farmers.

The project’s learnings will pave the way for replicating its success in Togo and Benin, strengthening fresh produce value chains and building climate resilience across West Africa.

The project is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in cooperation with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission. The project is implemented by the BASE Foundation and Empa on behalf of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Gmbh.