Initiative for Agricultural Development in Kosovo (IADK)

Home Portfolio Initiative for Agricultural Development in Kosovo (IADK)

IADK Kosovo

Introduction

The Initiative for Agricultural Development in Kosovo (IADK) is an organization established in 2005 with headquarters in the village of Sfaraçak i Poshtëm, in the Municipality of Vushtrri. With its activities, IADK is committed to rural development, creating better socio-economic conditions in rural areas, reducing unemployment and imports, producing healthy food, rational use of natural resources, and protecting the environment in Kosovo.

IADK works closely with Kosovo farmers and their associations, other non-governmental organizations, municipalities, and government authorities, paying attention to diversity and inclusiveness in its activities. IADK aims to develop farmers’ production capacities, increase their competitive power in the market, and disseminate knowledge on best practices of agricultural production and home processing by lobbying for policies and projects that contribute to rural development in Kosovo according to standards set in the European Union.

The average number of farmers they support on a yearly basis is around 500, of which 70% are smallholders while the rest count those with a larger production.

Challenge

The digitalization of advisory services is becoming an opportunity for agriculture development. However, several reasons make the usage of online tools difficult, first due to the current capacities from the advisory side and from the demand side in this case from farmers. Improving production methods and gaining new knowledge and practices is an existing challenge if advisors and farmers want to be globally competitive.

Advisory services to improve production and sales are crucial for the further development of the most promising and developed agriculture sub-sectors. IADK noted that there is limited access among producers, specifically small farmers, and collection centers, to knowledge: of production techniques, investment planning, and information flow. Also, there is a mismatch between demand and supply in the advisory service market, due to a lack of an affordable, functional, and transparent agro-consulting market. As a result, there is a huge number of rural small farmers and agriculture businesses who are not well receiving the advisory services they need.

Smallholder farmers lack knowledge of production techniques for achieving better production, not because of investment but mainly because of proper advisory services provided. A significant number of agronomists are available in the country, but the challenges remain with their updating of knowledge, network, and the opportunities given to share advice.
For that reason, in the framework of the EU project, IADK engaged a professional services provider that is already well established in digital services in agriculture and can matchmake the demand for advisory services in digitalization for Kosovo – AGRIVI FMS.

When searching for the appropriate tool for managing advisory services to farmers, they were looking for a simple-to-use tool. Exploring AGRIVI’s webpage, they found it very attractive and the perfect match tool for what they need. For that reason, they got in contact with AGRIVI representatives and asked for a deeper insight into the entire platform.
“Our team analyzed several similar tools by limiting the options on what they are interested in.” They choose the tool that is more commercial and sustainable in the future, having a lot of new and innovative things for farmers.

By using AGRIVI, we want to digitalize the entire process of providing the advisory services towards farmers, as well as replace the papers and written notes with the online platform.

Solution

“Considering the challenges and gaps as well as the future of agriculture development due to the global changes, through the project we will enhance the usage of the digital communication tool which will be through introducing communication and advisory tools that will help farmers and agriculture businesses to cope with global changes. Providing technical skills capacity and connecting farmers with advisors through an online platform such as AGRIVI Farm Management Software will enable our economy to have faster development as well as to remain in trend with global changes.” Shared with us Basri Pulaj, Program Coordinator at IADK.

By implementing AGRIVI as a digital tool for farmers, they will enhance communication between farmers and advisors. AGRIVI will enable every farmer to digitize their farm, by allowing them to manage the most relevant activities. With a variety of features, such as crop management, season planning, crop health tracking, early pest detection, and powerfully real-time analytics, AGRIVI will help farmers with land preparation, nutrition (calculation), plant protection inputs (organic and nonorganic), planting time, the distance of planting for the main crops, etc. IADK advisors will regularly update the AGRIVI application with the information needed for pursuing agriculture activity.

“The idea of digitalization was not followed to get the money from funds but to help farmers in managing their farm production. By using AGRIVI, we want to digitalize the entire process of providing advisory services to farmers, as well as replace the papers and written notes with the online platform. Going to the fields is something that is close to the farmers, but they need services from a distance as well. And using this kind of service is very important for the farmers. We believe that farmers will accept this as a very important tool for the improvement in terms of quality and quantity of their production, which is becoming more important on the market.” Mentioned at the end Egzon Gërxhaliu, Project Manager at IADK.

AGRIVI Product Solutions