Stage of Innovation: MVP (You have a product ready to go to the market)

Problem: Rainfall pattern in the last 5 years in the VADI communities has not been stable and regular to support two cycles of crop farming. This led to reduction of income of crop farmers; many youths and women are pulling out from crop farming due to existing risks. Therefore, the challenges VADI venture is addressing are: ?poor access to rain forecast information; thus, affecting productivity of smallholder farmers ?low awareness level on the use of climate smart information ?declining crop yield due to poor soil fertility and unstable weather pattern; ?inadequate extension services and market information to smallholder farmers; and destruction of farms and properties due to continuous flooding.

Unique Selling Point: ?use of primitive tools and manual labour for land preparation (usage of animal traction, hand tillage) ?use of primitive method of processing consequently leading to high post-harvest losses ?purchase of low-quality inputs (fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides etc) from unaccredited sources ?food processing with low quality processing equipment (mild steel) ?focus on rainfed farming alone (no dry season farming with irrigation) ?overuse and abuse of chemicals for spraying. premised on the current baseline, the following solutions are proposed: VADI aims to introduce innovations on climate smart agricultural practices for smallholder farmers which will sustainably increase productivity and income, increase adaptation, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, VADI will: ?support improved livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the targeted areas. ?support climate resilience assets: water management solutions (e.g., renewable energy powered water pumping machine); climate smart appliances (e.g., weather stations for smallholder farmers in target areas). ?Enrol smallholder farmers to receive climate smart advisory services information using digital technologies. ?develop farmer friendly innovative digital technologies to adapt to, anticipate and absorb climate shocks or stresses. e.g. seasonal climate prediction (SCP), good agricultural practices (GAP), good processing practices (GPP), sourcing for quality inputs, agricultural market information systems (AMIS)