Coffee cooperatives adopt technology

Agriterra’s partnership with VIONE Developers, an ICT company is slowly transforming the operations of 7 cooperatives (Bisheshe, Kiyaga, Kasaali, Rwandaro, Busongora, Ntugamo Union and Kiboota Katebwa) working in the coffee value chain. 

The software company designed a customised and comprehensive Management Information System (MIS) which suits the current cooperative context to enable the cooperatives to manage their day-to-day operations such as coffee transactions, savings, deposits and withdrawals, expenditure and income, farmer and field management, shares management, councils’ management, input distributions, produce bulking, staff and board management, trainings and inspections with all relevant financial reports.

The system has a desktop and mobile application, and it works both offline and online.

The tool is fast becoming a game changer for the cooperatives. Not only are they able to keep track of their active and inactive members, but the MIS is also enabling them to track their performance through the generated reports that show the progress of the various business operations in a given period.

The tool supports multiple users simultaneously at any given time based on its architecture, as long as a local area network is available. Its mobile application is especially useful for field activities, working offline and only requiring internet access for synchronizing data with the main database.

• System adaptability. The cooperatives also use it to manage their day-to-day business transactions such as incomes, expenditure, report generation, coffee business management and analysis. The MIS has eased data collection and improved their efficiency
• Managing farmer purchases. The system helps managing transactions related to coffee purchased from farmers, farmer payments, and tracking farmer balances.
• Managing farmer Shares. The system currently assists the cooperatives to monitor and manage farmer shares as it is a requirement to join hence, they are able to tell who has paid shares and who has the highest and lowest shareholding.
• Improved reporting. The cooperatives have witnessed a shift in their reporting, as they can now easily access data about specific activities or transactions for decision-making in less time than before when they were relying mostly on manual records.

The reports generated by the MIS have also helped cooperatives gain the trust of lenders, buyers, and donors by providing a clear and transparent track record of their business operations.