Sustainability reporting is an essential part of each company’s activity if it pursues sustainable development. According to GEP’s definition, sustainability reporting it ‘is a form of non-financial reporting that enables companies to convey their progress toward goals on a variety of sustainability parameters, including environmental, social and governance metrics, as well as risks and impacts they may face, at the moment or in the future’.
Farmer Charlie’s team are actively playing their part to achieve a sustainable world, and we would like to share our contribution to the UN SDGs principles.
Picture: Betty Bonnardel, CEO of Farmer Charlie, at COP 15 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 2022.
Farmer Charlie is an agri-tech platform that provides information and connectivity to small farmers and all plant growers who seek to optimise their activities with the help of modern technology solutions. Farmer Charlie is a perfect tool for sustainable agriculture, as it helps to manage a small garden or a whole parcel of land using the best practice.
According to USDA, sustainable agriculture concerns ‘farming in such a way to protect the environment, aid and expand natural resources and to make the best use of non-renewable resources’. Not only the result of an activity matters to sustainable development, but the way you achieve it.
Picture: Farmer Charlie team at Côte d’Ivoire
The Cool Mangoes project we have been working on since March 2023 is aimed at bringing refrigerated containers to small farming cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire. African regions’ huge agricultural potential is often hindered by lack of technology and knowledge of effective practices. While studying the farming conditions of the area and following surveys with local communities, Farmer Charlie’s team found out that local farmers suffer from up to 70% harvest waste. Such figure is shocking if we consider that the first two UN SDGs are No Poverty and Zero Hunger.
The Cool Mangoes project, conducted with our local partner Cool Lion Energies, aims at providing refrigerating systems to smallholder farmers to allow them to store fresh produce and limit waste due to deterioration. The local cooperative Wopinin-Wognon, based in the Tchologo region of Côte d’Ivoire, participates in the project and includes more than two hundred farmers. It is expected that the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the solution will be demonstrated and advertised, so that other cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond could use it.
It is important to mention that Farmer Charlie is equipped with solar panels and connected to satellites to bring energy, electricity, and Wi-Fi connectivity to any remote area. Technology can help smallholder farmers to quickly solve connectivity issues, have access to information, markets news, and to a huge agricultural database.
We would be grateful if you could show your support to our work and share with us which Sustainable Development Goals you are working on, and what results you have already managed to achieve.
-Marina Novokhatska
Comments