Share Farming 4.0: A More Equitable Way to Farm
Share farming agreements have been around for some time. This link here to FarmTable gives a great summary of the types of share farming models being used here in Australia. As a lawyer, I saw the benefits of this arrangement, particularly as it provides a way for farmers who might not have any capital upfront to still be able to ‘capitalize’ on existing assets of other farmers and hopefully share in the fruits of the labour upon harvest. One thing I’ve always loved about the agriculture sector is the resourcefulness, resilience and the spirit of cooperation deep in the heart of the people that work the land.
Although share farming agreements are incredibly innovative and useful, it can often become too complicated for many farmers. Also the pool of available farmers that wish to cooperate in this manner can be quite limited and are often sourced through word of mouth. What this means then is that we have some of the largest percentage of vacant farm land in the world. Retired farmers often hold on to their farm hoping that the future generation will come back and work on it. On the other end, we also have another group who perhaps inherited their family farm and are holding on to it while they are working in the cities.
With the current pandemic, we are seeing rising unemployment all over the world. This business model empowers individuals to start their own little farming enterprise even when they don’t have the capital to secure a lease on a land. Blockchain technology and its inherent smart contract capability will allow us to ‘digitise’ the farm land into a digital asset. Once digitised, it will be listed on a platform which outlines its land size, soil condition, suggestions on what kind of farming is suitable and other relevant data. Anyone interested can then search through this platform and pledge their interest. This first part of the platform connects people together.
One of the key complexities of a Share Farming Agreement is calculating fair rent and they have a variety of methods to make those estimates. This platform, however, aims at creating a truly novel way of sharing. The new farmer who joins only pays a nominal guarantee to the landholder. Upon harvest, the farmer would pay half of the profits to the landholder. All of this is coded into a smart contract and the produce are sold using its own native token. Therefore, every sale is recorded on the blockchain which not only provides provenance, but also transparency to all parties. The platform then also allows consumers to buy the produce from the farmers directly using the native token. There could also be a local fulfilment centre where all produce are sent, packed and then distributed to consumers by on-demand delivery drivers.
Another component of the platform also includes farm experts. These experts can be anywhere in the world and can be agricultural academics or retired farmers with lots of experience. They can provide advice either on chat or video call either pro bono or paid in the native token or even paid in kind from the produce. The final component is a crowdfunding feature. As some crops require higher initial investment, new farmers can use the platform to crowdfund their venture. Depending on specific conditions, arrangements will be made as to the ROI for the funders. This is essentially a sharing platform but it is multi-layered where additional components can be added on a need by need basis. It is also very much a blockchain solution taking advantage the trust protocols and creating its own sustainable economic system.
We hope that this will be a global movement. We hope to ride on the waves of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and the Distributed Cooperative Organization (DisCO) movement taking shape now in readiness for the post-capitalist era. Each community around the world would have their own ecosystem where they can sow, harvest and distribute local produce to consumers. We hope this will empower and nourish local communities as it is obtained directly from farmers. We hope this will help us as a society reconnect back to the food that nourishes us.
There are vacant arable land all over the world and so we hope to create a movement that allows people to realise that there are alternatives out there to putting food on our table. We hope that in 3 years, people would not just rely on large supermarkets and the established supply chains as the only way economies can engage. Just this year, we saw 350 million Euros worth of land being digitized on Ethereum by just one fund manager. The future of land management will be digital. The world seems to be on the cusp of great institutional change and I think we as global citizens might just finally have the courage to shift our collective consciousness into one of universal inclusion.
