The various categories of stakeholders
DAS has individual smallholder farmers and MSMEs (Rural Producer Organizations) including farmer groups and VSLAs that provide access to financial services in different rural areas of the country where access to formal financial services is very limited.
DAS has leveraged the successes achieved at the marketing end in using lead farmers as Village/Field Agents and customized it through capacity building initiatives to give birth to the Digital Agent.
DAS is using the Aggregation centers both at the Rural Producer Organisation (RPO) level and at the higher cooperative level (ACE, Cooperative) to reduce the offtaker costs in aggregation of the farmer produce that eventually lead to the reduced price offered to the smallholder farmer.
Collectors or aggregators offer a key service in sustainable valuechains. They are insitu micro - traders who know their communities and the smallholder farmers. Their inclusion or exclusion in valuechain interventions often is key in determining the initiative successes.
As the drivers of inclusive markets, offtakers as buyers are engaged by DAS for privileged access to organised supply from smallholder farmer nodes that have the capacity or are willing to build the capacity to meet the stipulated standards of the offtaker.
The input function is captured by DAS as being one of the focal points that have necessitated the digitalization of agro - valuechains and the invention to use data as a currency.
These service providers include insurance and financial institutions as key stakeholders in enabling sustainable and inclusive commercialization of the smallholder farmers.