PEETS- eLogistic Solutions for Urban Farming

PEETS- eLogistic Solutions for Urban Farming
Minor International Entrepreneurship & Development 2017

Location
Johannesburg, South Africa

Students
Tom Hoefnagel
Nienke Meijer
Marleen Broekman

Introduction
We, Nienke, Marleen and Tom are going to Johannesburg, South Africa to stimulate sustainable agriculture within Johannesburg. In South Africa we will work for PEETS (Process Energy and Environment Technology Station), a technology station which was established in 2010. PEETS has as primary mandate to contribute towards improving the competitiveness of industry through the application of specialized knowledge, technology and facilitating the interaction between industry and the academy in order to enable innovation. PEETS is currently working on a Urban Farming project. In many places in and around the city of Johannesburg small-scale agriculture is taking place, rooftops, greenhouses, etc. It is always an important issue how to find customers, especially big customers, for vegetables produced on a small scale. All the vegetables should be of the same quality standard. Big customers, like hospitals, restaurants, supermarkets need to be connected and involved. A big issue for the urban farmers is transportation. This transportation should bring the vegetables in small amounts to a central storage place from where the customers can get it. Smallholder farmers who may not be able to afford a car, might be helped by the introduction of an e-vehicle. An application can bring the information from producers and the demand from consumers together.

Objective
The stay in Johannesburg will last three months, in which we will have the following objective; Stimulate sustainable agriculture within Johannesburg on an enterprise level. Although our project will be on behalf of PEETS, we will also work together with other institutions and companies. Our objective can be divided into the following sub-goals;

•  Performing logistic mapping of the current state of urban farming in Johannesburg
• Perform logistic mapping of the current needs for urban farming produce
• Connect urban farmers and large scale consumers (LSCs)

NB! By large scale consumers we mean e.g. Hospitals, schools, restaurants

Research Question
How could one improve and increase sustainable agriculture in Johannesburg on an enterprise level? This research question can be divided into multiple sub-questions:

• How can urban farmers get access to local markets?
• How can large scale consumers (LSCs) get access to local markets?
• Are farmers interested to sell their crops, instead of private use?
• Are farmers able to deliver a constant supply?
• What is the quality of the products? Good enough for the consumers?

Research Methods
During our project we need to know a lot about the needs and willings of the farmers to convince them of the benefits of selling their crops. Furthermore we need to know the willings and criteria of the large scale consumers, if they are interested in buying the locally produced crops. This information we will be collected by interviewing the farmers and the large scale consumers during our first few weeks in Johannesburg, this is our market research.

To learn more about urban farming and urban farming specific in Johannesburg we will use a literature study and market research as a research methods. The knowledge we will collect, can we use with how to facilitate more urban farming and  how we can help the farmers to set up their own business.

Deliverables
Our main end product will be a requirements report for the application. Since this not an concrete end product this will be evaluated using the MoSCoW method, to clarify the limits and requirements of the report.

MUST overview of all the locations of the urban farms & overview of all the sustainable minded stores. SHOULD overview of the willingness of both the urban farmers and sustainable minded stores for a sustainable way of transport

COULD quality check of the urban farming products

WOULD overview of the effects of the market research on the youth unemployment

Planning
Our research method is divided into three phases;

1. Stakeholders During this phase we will create and verify our stakeholder analysis. As we have to deal with many stakeholders keeping an overview is important.
2. Research During this phase we are interviewing all the stakeholders and analyze all the data which is available.
3. Execution In this phase we will write both the feasibility as well as the requirement report.

Stakeholders
The project has multiple stakeholders, which makes the project both existing but complicated. One of the main stakeholders is PEETS, the technology station funded by the university of Johannesburg & the government. PEETS wants to find an sustainable way of transport for the crops. Furthermore the SOASO has to be mentioned as a stakeholder, since this organization provides the certificates for the quality of the produced urban farming crops. Furthermore the organization Harambee is involved in the project, as they have as main goal to provide jobs for the youth, which can easily implemented in our project. As final stakeholder Khula is of main interest. Khula is an already existing application which connects the urban farmers of Johannesburg.

Students
The team consists of Marleen, Nienke & Tom. All with a different background; Technology, Policy & Management, Nutrition & Health and an engineer (Mechatronics) creates a diverse team with all types of expertise and knowledge. The team will come up with innovative ways to tackle the project, thereby fulfil the project as successful as possible.