Inspiration
Growing up in India, we know what it's like to be a farmer here & by extension, around the globe. As someone who's relatives are farmers as well, I know what the struggles can be like. Farmers globally work tirelessly day & night to support their families, yet due to the shady tactics of middleman & consumers not being aware, they lose out on the profit. Millions of farmers worldwide are suffering as a result, we knew we had to make a solution.
What it does
Agrovic is a platform that connects farmers directly to the consumers, providing a farm to table experience. The product will be in the form of a mobile application initially. However, in future more operating systems and platforms would be supported.
Farmers have a limited sources of income, which are middlemen or manufacturing companies(mostly food companies). For the same reasons, farmers do not have the control to set the price. They have to accept the orders on the price decided by the companies or middlemen or else they would have no sales. The application will eliminate middlemen who takes a high share of profit(25%-30%) from the farmers and sells at a higher cost to the consumers. There are many protest done by the farmers for this issue, especially in India, which shows how serious the issue is. Its not just about farmers, even the consumers face issues with the conventional chain. Consumers usually don't know where their food, vegetable, fruits, and farm related crops are coming from. They are unsure of what practices are being followed at the farms, and if they are healthy to eat without any side effects. It becomes worse when consumers are purchasing the daily groceries from super stores where consumers have no idea of the hygiene of a product, preservatives added, how long has it been preserved for, and where it came from.
Agrovic solves all of these by connecting farmers directly to the consumers and allowing them to trade. Agrovic offers multiple ways to sell and purchase products, which includes a marketplace where farmers can add the crops they grow regularly and could be sold on most of the days in a year. Marketplace is usually for long term crops which are bought once or twice in a year for example grains, rice, etc. Consumers can scroll through the marketplace and place an order from any of the farmer keeping in mind the rating of the farmer, rating of that product, distance, days needed for the delivery, etc. However, marketplace might not always work for a concept like this, for the same reason there would be an auction like system where consumers can add their requirements and farmers could offer them pricing and time till delivery for the same. The same could be reversed where the farmer can enter the amount of land they have and the crops they can grow an consumers can give them orders to their nearest and trusted farmers. At last, there would be a custom order system in the message screen where farmers and consumers can bargain to a fair deal on chat and farmer can send a custom order to the consumer by writing details which includes what consumer gets, what farmer earns, how long will it take for the farmer to fulfill the order. Then the consumer will go through the order and if it matches with the conversation they had and wants to make a deal, they will pay on spot and the farmer will get the money after completing the order.
How we built it
We built LocalHarvest using a lot of tools which includes Flutter, Dart, Firebase, Figma, Gemini, etc. We started by designing the application and its layout on Figma. LocalHarvest was a 2 layered application as it had consumers and farmers. Firebase was a great option for managing the backend of the application as it provides authentication, storage, and a database in form of Firebase Firestore. We have also used Gemini to add an AI touch to the application. Flutter is a framework that allows developers to create cross platform applications with help of Dart programming language. The application shows the past 3 years of software development skills of mine with Flutter.
Challenges we ran into
We ran into some challenges with design. We spent a lot of time on Figma mockups to ensure that we had the best UX product & the app was the easiest-to-use possible for both farmers & buyers. We also had some struggles trying to code such a thorough application, however through persistent hard work, we were able to overcome this. We kept thinking of the farmers we could help through this, & the people we could alleviate out of poverty, so that was great motivation.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of making something truly impactful. As it's something so close to home, I feel like I'm truly giving back to my family & beyond. I've always wanted to work on a product that is both technically difficult & has a massive community impact, so this was a great way to do it. We were very proud of the hard work we put in, as we were able to code this whole platform in such little time as well.
What we learned
We learned a lot about design & frontend. We learned many new tools & also had to overcome some challenges with getting the database working. Throughout, we watched tutorials, read manuals, & skilled up as much as possible. It was a great learning experience.
What's next for LocalHarvest
A LOT
We plan to make this the real deal. We want to launch this soon to farmers & actually get this project going. We'll be looking to partner with local government & non-profit organizations so we can get this project rolling. We also want to implement this worldwide, specifically in the USA, Canada, & India. We want to help farmers, & we won't stop until we've done just that.
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