AdLunam chats with Yog Shrusti, Co-Founder/CEO of Farmsent, about the future of blockchain in agriculture. Discover how decentralized tech is transforming farming, boosting transparency, and empowering farmers. Don't miss this engaging session filled with insights, audience Q&A, and more! 🌾

DIVIC goes live every Thursday on the AdLunam Twitter page.

Blockchain Bounty: Decentralized Agricultural Revolution

SPEAKERS

JP (CBO of AdLunam)

Yog Shrusti, Co-Founder/CEO of Farmsent

Awesome. All right, so long as we are clear, Yog, welcome. Could you do a quick sound check just before we give a minute for the room to fill up and we can flag up the show?

Hello, hello, thank you.

All right. Super Yog coming across loud and yeah, that's fantastic. Looking forward to the show right now. Awesome. Super All right. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, let's get started. My team has given me the green to get started with the show. So welcome, welcome. Welcome to this episode of Diving into Crypto. Here's where we see the movers, the shakers, the candlestick watchers and everybody who is doing something fantastic in the web3 space. I am JP from AdLunam Inc., bringing you everything about web3. And before we begin, we have Yog Shrusti who's going to be talking about something that's dear to all of us, the way that blockchain is going to impact that particular sector. And if you are a foodie, you definitely and you care about your food, you definitely want to stay around. And I'm certain you're going to have a few questions at the end of it, because if you're the person who can tell the difference between a Sharma and a schnitzel, you should know exactly what's going to what's going to happen as you as you get your stuff ready, it's revolutionizing. It's a manner in which the space is being revolutionized by everything with Blockchain, and you have to get on top of this. So before we begin, a few announcements, ladies and gentlemen, this show is brought to you by AdLunam, who is the all in one web3 investment ecosystem, empowering early stage startups from tokenomics to community growth, VC funding to IDO launches, and through its unique engaged platform, it transforms the way investors experience the world of web3 investing and dynamic NFTs also through its monthly web3 pitch arena, it bridges the gaps between innovative startups and venture capital. A few points for the show, please. If we get cut off, come back to AdLunam Inc., and you will find a link that will lead you back into the room. If you have questions, we will open up a section at the end of the show for you to be able to put your questions in. But hey, in the meantime, if you do think of something, feel free to tweet those questions in, and we'll get our speaker to answer them for you, if we have time or right back to you after the show. Also. So views expressed on this program belong are for belong to that of the speaker, and are meant for educational purposes only. It is not to be considered as financial advice. Please do your own research. Ladies and gentlemen. Okay, without further ado, I can see some of our regulars are back inside the house. Hey, I can see Kim. I can see snowy. I can see Kelly is here as well. Shout out to all our AdLunam fam who regularly tune into the podcast. Great, great to have you that now. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's welcome Yog. Yog is the co-founder and CEO of Farmsent. He's a prominent technopreneur from the Middle East, over 25 years of experience in it and digital media, and he possesses a rare blend of business acumen and technical proficiency with a strategic online vision. More importantly, our man is changing the way that food goes from farm to table. But also there's an entire wide world, which he's going to introduce to us as the CEO of Farmsent, and is also the world's first farmers blockchain, which is why this show is, you know, going to be so interesting, so unique, and they're doing something phenomenal in this space. So without further, ado. Yog, welcome. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation to be on the show today.

Thank you so much. JP, wonderful audience. So let's have a great discussion.

Super, super. So Yog, tell us a little about what got you into the web3 space. I know you've been, you know, an entrepreneur. You've been in it for so long, but there has to have been something about that journey that's unique. Tell us a little about that

amazing question. I think it is more inclusiveness. You know, I'm an economic student, not many know, probably so money, in theory is all inclusive, but behind all these dazzles, actually, it isn't writing. So I believe whoever has something to offer is a supplier, essentially, and whoever has to offer something in exchange is a buyer, right? But in reality, that's not the case. Money is in few hands, and that create the inequality, and we have created, unfortunately, a financial ecosystem that doesn't let everybody participate. So we have 21% in order, unbanked people, still in 2024 we are talking about. And so blockchain based cryptocurrency is the signing light, right? It is a practical solution. It doesn't require a lot of permission from the centralized authorities. Doesn't require anyone to dictate terms. And in its, in its, of course, once the mass adoption happens, it has the, all the characteristics to create a money economy which is in all inclusive, and that's, that's what made me really passionate about web3.

Okay, so economics brought you into blockchain, but there had to have been some moment at which, you know, you figured out that Tech had something to offer to maybe make the best of what we understand from economic theories, right? What was that like?

So, you know? So initially, I wasn't like a technical person. I was like deep, deep diving into economics, learnt a lot, but then realized that computer is catching up. You know, let's do a master in computer applications. I finished my master, learnt a lot, and then happened to connect the dots. So economics computer, which was a very rare combination at that time, I started my digital agency in 2006 it was by that time we were teaching people why to have a website, so it was too early, right? And then being an equal student, this was very exciting for me to get involved into the financial world. And blockchain and cryptocurrency become very natural progression, actually, you know, for me,

okay, okay, so, so directly the transition from web2. But now I'm going to ask you very, very specifically, right? There have to have been a moment at which, you know, the switch flipped and you said to yourself, hey, web3 is the space to be for me. What? What was that specifically like? I mean, was there a moment? Was there a time? Was there like an epiphany?

Yeah. I mean, I heard about Bitcoin well before, because, you know, I was in digital agency industry in 2006 I heard about Bitcoin. I. Didn't take it very seriously. You know, I'll be dishonest, but I think when I started looking at Ethereum, I was like, Wow, this blockchain with the smart contract and no centralized control, this is it. That's it. And I was absolutely sure by 2017 that blockchain is going to rule. It wasn't just one moment, but multiple things. Like, you know, lot of our friends were trying to buy bitcoin. Was finding it difficult in the Middle East. And then at that time, Ethereum started. And we all said, like, wow, this industry is going to go and create a lot more inclusiveness, and, you know, a lot of interesting startups is going to flow into this space, and you don't want to miss out. So, yeah,

okay, okay, all right. So, so obviously, the initial difficulty of buying, but I find it interesting that you said, you know, Ethereum is really what got to you, because we have most of our guests, of course, they're like, you know, it's Bitcoin, and Bitcoin was the one that opened our eyes, and then we fell in love with that. But I haven't had to be honest, many people say that, you know, they fell in love with Ethereum, and it's interesting that you mentioned that.

yeah, no crazy, Bitcoin actually sparked the interest. As you said, with many, there was a bit of a skepticism initially, but there was no doubt. By 2017 there was no doubt that Bitcoin is going to rule. But Ethereum actually reinforced that this could be something where we can write code that could be a law, you know, and that's why I think that naturally, all technical guys got super excited about Ethereum, and we went with the flow. Then the more we dig deep, we figured out that this is it, and there will be multiple versions of Ethereum. It could be better later, but the direction it takes is going to stay, yeah.

yeah. It's interesting that you mentioned that, particular facet about Ethereum was, you know, was the one that really stood out. And that's true. It did. It did happen to be one of the key points in which it revolutionized how blockchain was utilized across the board, you know, and in so many ways. From an economic perspective, you can appreciate the fact that it is compared to oil, because that's exactly what it ended up doing, isn't it?

Absolutely, I think it has. It also caught the imagination of lot of developers who were probably fighting to get a decentralized infrastructure to experiment with their ideas. And I think Ethereum is a collective economy, right? And for the matter any other chain which came after Ethereum, that gave lot of people to express their ideas on chain and in a decentralized way. I think you are right.

Yeah, super right. Because that's exactly, again, how oil greased. I mean, you know, no pun intended, but that's how oil grease the engines for a lot of the economies across the world. So certainly something to draw a correlation from. I want to, I wanted to take this conversation on two parts. I'm going to give you a heads up at the beginning, right? So the first one is, of course, I want you to tell us a little about how Farmsent came together. But I think it'd be very interesting to also get an underlying landscape of how logistics across the agriculture system to be not just agriculture, right? The food industry works. And then we can piece that together through the series of questions. But to start with, tell us a little about Farmsent. It's a new initiative. You, you know, you know that you focused on this to be able to make a change.

Yeah, it's very interesting. Actually, the idea was my co-founder, who's sitting behind Farmsent Twitter salah, he had set up an organization to help Colombian coffee farmers. You know, he did that for a couple of years. The idea was always how to optimize the center between the farmer and consumers? Because, you know, in countries, specifically in Colombia, in Africa, in Southeast Asia, you get to see farmers not earning enough, right? So Salah initially thought like, let's help these farmers in Colombia. Basically, coffee farmers were suffering from these cartels and so on so forth. So when he started, I was just like, very passively involved in this. So that organization was being bought, right? But I was observing that organization. And finding out that it isn't able to scale itself. So one day, I was just drawing few ideas so I can give it to Salah to for him to execute this. And that idea happened to be Farmsent because it was based on few crucial parameters, which are like, Why are we not having multiple countries? Why are we sticking to one SKU Why not hundreds of SKUs? Like, why we stick to coffee? Why not rice? Why? Why not any other commodities? Right? So when I do that idea, and I invited Salah for a coffee to show him what I have done, it's surprising. He said, like, let's do it. And we started the Farmsent.

Oh, brilliant, yeah, I think there must be something. Was that coffee Colombian just had to put that other, yeah, it was so certainly Colombian. I think we've just found something. I think Colombian coffee has got a unique, you know, characteristic in which you get some great ideas out of and I suppose in many ways we should thank you for being able to share it across the world and in a manner in which it's most efficient, right? Absolutely,

yeah. Like, I think in one of the coffee shops I read that, you know, life is beautiful, so have coffee and stay awake for it. You know,

that's a good one. Super, okay, so, so salah, and you started, started Farmsent, I'm certain you have a, you know, a large team that's behind the scenes, that's, you know, keeping this thing moving. Was it, you know, how did you get people to cut onto the idea and join the bandwagon? Tell us. Could you tell us how that played out?

As you know, like, putting a team for a blockchain startup is very tough. One it's difficult to have resources, and there aren't many resources, which are, you know, like blockchain compatible and and when we started, it was even lower, right. And also, there was a narrative. Then, you know that crypto is all about scam. Blockchain is a bad thing. And then we didn't have that. You know why you nice guys are getting into blockchain, was one question somebody asked me. I'm like, What do you mean? Like, see you and salah, both are nice guys. Why are you getting into blockchain and spoiling your reputation? I'm like, Wow, good. So, yeah, okay, point taken. But when we stuck around, we started, you know, developing things. We started showing the proof of concept. Magically, people started joining, like, and lot of our resources didn't even ask for pay. They started joining first, and then obviously we found ways to compensate. So that was very, you know, emotionally fulfilling, and we felt that, yeah, I think we are in the right business right now, because, you know, so many people are joining and committed and yeah, so we got to put more effort, and we started building a team. I think we're a sizable team right now. But everybody is so passionate about farmers economy, they are so emotional about how this can contribute to their livelihood. And, yeah, it's, it's very fulfilling for me. And salah, yeah,

I can imagine it would be because, you know, it really is a lifeblood of the entire planet. You can talk about, you know, other sort of commodities, all you want, but without food, without water, those fundamentals, which we take for granted, if they don't move in the right way, in an efficient way, you know, the world's really going to come to a standstill, right? Absolutely. So cool, right? So, on that same point, you know, I'm certain a lot of us don't identify with how the system works when it comes to, you know, from farm to table, we used to understand it from a particular perspective. But there's also a technology layer that's come in to make things smarter, more efficient, more effective, right? Could you help us with understanding the landscape of what the system was and how blockchain is going to make that better?

Let's take a case. If $1 coffee packet in Indonesia comes from Lamo becomes $12 in Dubai. Okay, what does that tell you? The supply chain is broken. And the main reason behind this dysfunctional supply chain, I would say, is opacity, because no one can for. Show certainly say that the price is $12 because of XYZ factor, apart from attributing that to maybe a shipping cost is high. That's why in the price gone up. Petrol prices are high. That's why the price gone up. But there is no certainty, because no one knows who is adding these margins that made a $1 coffee, $12 in Dubai, right? So when we dig deep, we realize that, why can't we make certain things transparent for everybody to see? Right? So what we did between the farmer and the consumer every exchange of hands, we are writing that on chain and making it available for everybody to see. So what happens there? And this is where the real economics takes over, right? The market dynamics always wants to optimize by itself. For example, if I tell you that Salah is charging $2 for supply chain, JP can get up and say, like, no, that's costly. I actually can offer that for $1 right when that happens, the market takes control over and then auto optimization of the center happens, and that means more income for farmer and maybe less price here for consumer. So the benefit, of course, is what we aim to achieve is, of course, that farmers should receive the big chunk of that and the consumer also should not suffer from inflation, you know, right? And so then I'll come back to your point on when you ask, like, how blockchain is making it happening, I would say that there is no suitable technology which can make things so transparent and decentralized than blockchain. So it was a natural fit. But prior to that, I was working on a layer 1 which failed miserably. So a lot of learning was there. From there, I thought like, yeah, Blockchain is suited for this.

Oh, indeed, Indeed, indeed, you know, if you can, when you put that comparative from $1 to 12, taking it from just one, you know, a location that's a few 1000 kilometers away, and you have that many layers that are added over, because you're talking about one retail unit, right? You're not talking about, you know, the wholesale cost and if it's going to go up that much? Yes, we need to understand why it's so pricey.

Yeah. So the thing what we did is we have something called palms and transparent pricing. So with this activity, what we do, we make it visible for both the buyer and the farmer that you are for the farmer, for example, you are charged. You are putting your cost this much. And thus, the supply chain guy is adding that much margin. The packaging guy is adding this much. All these things are written for him to see, so he knows deep inside that there is no one here who is being opaque about it, so that is adding a lot of value to the farmer. In the other side the wholesalers, they also know that they are dealing in with a platform which will expose every single detail, so everybody is very careful of charging. We have already seen that there is a 40% more income for farmers, and we barely started optimizing. By the way, it is just our test batches are going on. So imagine, when we are fully functional, what that would be like. We're aiming at probably a 2x profit for farmers, and yeah, Blockchain is making it happen

super Yog, That's brilliant. That's brilliant to find out, because you know what you're talking about, is revolutionizing those that are often, often not considered as important. What do you say it from the mainstream point of view? Right? Most of the time, farmers are not considered as an important function to society in comparison to other, you could say maybe higher paying uh, roles, or the importance that so society gives a particular status. But the more the more that you actually dive deeper into it, you begin to understand that the invaluable role that farmers play through this entire system, right? It's just that society on a whole uses a very different yardstick, yeah, and I'm certain you're seeing it. I mean, you started off with coffee, but I'm certain that you're seeing it revolutionize the industry as a whole, right? And. Uh, how in what ways is this happening even further?

Um, so I'll just talk to you about three T's we are focusing so then the flow would be right for anyone to understand. So at the moment we are focusing on which we call three Ts, right, the trade financing and traceability. Now let's just take about traceability. I think it is a fundamental rights for all of us to know what we are putting in the body, right? So there are lot of opacity in knowing what goes in there. Even ingredients are written in such a fine print that you probably need to pick take a picture. Have you done that before? Have you taken a picture and zoomed it to know what is the content?

I personally do that, but I know a lot of people don't, and it's like, yeah, but please continue. Continue. I'll tell you about that a little later.

Sure. So when we started looking at this, we said, like, okay, so what are the components? Goes in from literally implementing seed to school, right? So we started collecting data, and now we are implementing through our partner, peak network. We are implementing sensors now, agriculture sensors which will test the soil and continuously pump this data on chain, then the produce goes to a storage warehouse there. It also need to, we need to take the temperature, humidity, kind of data that is also pumped on chain, and then, then it moves through supply chain. Those data also we collect, which is what we collect, is location, temperature, humidity, various other things all through sensors. And then there are human entries, like, you know, like certifications, lab test and all those kind of things. We put together that in a simple way, where you have a QR code in your packet, maybe a copy packet, and you scan that, and you get all the information, where it was produced, who produced it. What was the storage condition? What is the soil condition in there? What was the process of supply chain? What is the date? All those details are given and given for free, because knowing about your food is a fundamental right, we believe. Right now, this is only the case of like Farmsent and say, tracing, you know, seed to spoon commodity. What happened? Then we thought that we wouldn't be there everywhere to put the sensors. We can't be there everywhere to put the, you know, like supply chain sensors everywhere, right? So we decided, Okay, how about we make a deep in infra and ask people to contribute. Organizations will get in and will put, for example, say hundreds of sensors. And government will put, say, 1000s of sensors. And then collectively, we are putting those data in on chain and rewarding them as well. So then we met make a wholehearted, you know, agriculture deep in ecosystem. Before blockchain, it wasn't possible, but now it is possible. We can share data. We can share rewards. Right now, obviously, what we may expect is that this is going to go to every other sector, like in within the peak ecosystem. I am already having exposure to some of amazing projects, like natives, for example, is collecting, maybe mapping data Salah is collecting, say, you know, like noise pollution data and stuff like that. So this will make a deep in stand out among all the blockchain implementation, because this looks like a tangible way of evaluating that it is actually affecting us, with a lot of us. For example, if I just say HDK technology is good as a common person, he doesn't see. How does it affect him? But if I say that, hey, this particular project farms and is giving you data which tells you whether what you are eating is good or not, then you will obviously take a look at blockchain more positively. So I think going forward, I think industry will be affected with this positive things or implementation of deep in I answer your question that way?

Oh, definitely. I mean, right now, the prime information that we get are from, you know, influences on Tiktok or Instagram or, you know, or YouTube, for example, right? That's if they're saying something, then it must be true. But we never, we often, as a society, never really think about the fact that, Hey, you. What we should start DYR, right, do your own research. Try and figure this out. Demand that you have more information about how these things are done, including, perhaps you know better practices and conditions for the entire process, right?

Absolutely. I think collecting data is the starting point of all but post that, how we react to those data will define the growth of entire ecosystem. But collecting data is kind of a mandatory thing.

Yeah, indeed, indeed, because those numbers are going to be able to tell you where to pivot, what you can do, what you can optimize. Yeah, granted. Okay, Yog. That being said, I want to shift this conversation also to look at certain avenues of, you know, of expansion, where this is you spoke, spoken about the transparency and the traceability, you know, and you're talking about it from, say, from a few sectors. So, apart from coffee, where else do you see that this, this can optimize what's happening with, you know, with other commodities in the space, or some that may be easier to start with. What do you think?

We have taken around 73 SKUs, coffee, vanilla, you know, the commodities, basically a bit of self life, you know, so that we can understand the supply chain bit better. I must say that we are still learning the supply chain. And you wouldn't believe like there are close to 36 documents for required for anything to move from point A to point B, which is ridiculous. And these are all happening literally manually, like people taking paper and submitting and so for us also, we think like a trade must be like as an economic student, we learned that trade was the first business mankind conducted, right? So how it can, how it can stay undisrupted for that long? So vested interest groups have kept this entire sector very opaque and very prone to digitalization, and that is why there is a lot of difficulties. But then we are learning it faster. We're learning and we are implementing. So initially, we will be focusing on these 73 SKUs, and then later we will also handle fresh vegetables, once we master some courage. At the moment, it is all testing yet.

Yeah, I can imagine that's quite an ambitious task, but it looks like you guys are already staying ahead of the curve. So, so more power to you and to Team Farmsent. Sorry, more power to you guys.

Actually, a lot of them have joined the ecosystem. We've been implementing a few crucial things with chainlink, with peak network. So these are all going to be the real implementation, beyond currency or token. You know, I think as an outside audience, right? those who are not part of general cryptocurrency, they probably are unable to think beyond cryptocurrency or meme coins or whatever exciting it is, right? But once we start seeing these deep in use cases and what Farmsent can achieve for the farmers and some other projects in the agriculture space, like Demetra and all kind of those who are really working hard, um, what they can collectively achieve in agriculture sector will actually encourage people to have some sort of a positive narrative about the whole industry. And hopefully that will be the catalyst moment for all of us. You know.

Indeed, indeed you know. And Yog as a manner of speaking, right? I mean, I'm certain that you've come across cases where farmers have gotten maybe the short end of the step, right, where they're doing all the work they're creating, all the produce, and then everything over that layer of what they've finished is just a service which is charging more and more increasing price. Are there some situations that you can tell us about to help us really understand, you know what is happening and what really should be different?

Yeah. I mean, for, for all, all of your audience, there was a small video few weeks back I was watching, and somebody shot this video where they were giving chocolate to the cocoa farmers. And one of Farmers, After testing the chocolate, said, like, this is game changing. This is so fulfilling. It is so empowering, right? So these are the words. Imagine somebody putting years and years of effort in growing that coca, and haven't tasted a chocolate, that's how it's broken. The ecosystem is so almost everybody. And remember, you just said that, you know, farmers are not really looked after, and that the last one to receive anything in this slide, right? I have seen that standard information, I think probably in the US, it would be so easy to get a student loan than getting a loan for farmer. And imagine, imagine that in Southeast Asia or Africa, it is you have 0% chance to get a loan as a farmer. And so the whole thing is so emotional when, when you look at the farmers not earning enough and our entire food securities depending upon these people who are thanklessly, I'm sorry to say this word, thanklessly, putting effort and giving us food on table, you know,

yeah, I mean, without a doubt, and it goes beyond that, right? I mean, everything that comes out of agriculture has found some way to be able to be converted into a useful product, from plant waste to, you know, creating clothes, you have the entire product range, even from like a year of corn, right? Yeah. And everything that becomes not derivative, but everything that becomes a product of just that one activity. Absolutely,

few weeks back, we were actually negotiating with one of the Indonesian setup to actually sell corn germs, that part of the corn which is becoming corn oil, you know? And right? So we realize that almost everything of corn is being used in some or other way. Nothing is a waste, you know. So. And then you know, if you look at that, farmers are actually creating sustainable products. These are example of sustainable products. Nothing goes into waste, and the whole economy functions. But I think we don't give the due credit to promise, yeah, I mean, across the world.

I think we've made a fantastic, fantastic movement of being able to just see on the, you know, just the surface, and take that to be the truth. But I really don't want to get philosophical. There's so much that we can deep dive into it. Okay, so, so, yeah, what are some of the spaces that you guys are operating in or focusing on for your test cases? Tell us a little about how that's planning out.

So initially we started identifying the markets. We felt Indonesia is a proper country with 38 million farmers. Can you think about that? 38 million farmers have Indonesia? So we onboarded 160,000 farmers at the test case. And the government was like, I think you need to do 2 million minimum. So we are actually negotiating it down. We said, like, let's do the test case, and after we'll figure out what we do so. And then we identified, you know, like UAE and Dubai in particular, as our import market, because they don't grow a lot of food, so they are depending upon import which is kind of like, you know, low hanging fruit in import business, right? So we can fetch a better rate for farmers. And it was easier for us to, you know, prove the proof of concept. So we felt that we would first select these two countries to implement, and then we are sorting out. Right now we are working with circle, but eventually this is going to be a pilot project some, you know, some big financial institute is going to be involved in moving money. So all those kind of things we will be testing. In the meantime, while we were finding a lot of buyers. Someone asked me, your but why would I trust your farmer? So that question actually bothered me a bit. So we were just thinking what we do to stay ahead of the curve, right? So we identified what is the issues the farmers are actually and why they can't compete with someone else, like a brand, let's say Starbucks. I keep giving Starbucks as an example, they might sue me for one day. But if, if I would just tell you, like, you know, we as individuals, as consumers, we always hide behind the brand, right? We just say, like, why? To put anything, let's just buy a Starbucks. Easy, right? But we think that buying from the farmer involves a bit of risk element, and how do we remove that farmers don't have enough money to compete with a brand like Starbucks. So what we do we flip that towards Starbucks itself by bringing transparency in traceability. Right now, consumer like you and me, we will walk in and we'll say, why would we trust the Starbucks so as, how do you procure your coffee? Right? So instead of questioning the farmer, we change that direction to create, you know, like questioning the quality, right? So we say, don't trust the brand. Look at the quality, right? And that right, hopefully one day, will create enough awareness that people will be actually scanning and everything before they consume, and we'll get to read about the details. And of course, knowing about the farmer, there is a bit of an emotional connection between who grows it. And a couple of days back, we partnered with the Verda. Right now we are creating field identities. We are marking each of the field of the world with a number, so we will be also giving that detail so the map will zoom right to where your produce was grown, and actually information till that right so, so in this test case, we have already done the beta for depths. Depths is our product passport that traceability. We came up with this idea that everybody should have a passport, even the products, you know, and then we named the product passport. And then we have tested the beta version of our marketplace, which is between the farmer and the wholesaler, and our next version, which is going to be is between the farmer and consumer. But we are experimenting whether we will go for a, you know, like some sort of a social buying, kind of a structure so that collectively, individuals can buy, so the quantity is not too less for an international shipping so we are experimenting that idea and in parallel, we are working with few important entities so that we can have trade financing, because we don't want our farmers not to be paid. For example, right? Our trade financing takes like, a month or so to be paid. And for someone like a farmer who is always struggling with liquidity, it might be difficult. So we are arranging trade financing between the farmer and the buyer so that farmers get paid immediately. And that is where we are involving chain link. So chainlink gives a lot of data that shipment is done and then the money is released. So yeah. So far, that's the thing we are working on.

Well, you know, that sounds so it's like such a complicated process, right from, starting around, you know, you produce, you're gonna, obviously ship it to somebody, or rather, give it to somebody is going to take it to market, and then look to the export it, and then have it received at the other end, and then, you know, it's distributed. And it's at that point of time, no matter how long it takes that, you know, fine, there has to be a green signal somewhere for somebody to release a payment so that the farmer finally receives it. And thanks to the banking system, God bless it. You know, they could take anywhere from a week to 10 days over and above the fact that the money has been transferred from one country to another.

Absolutely, the entire process of trade financing takes 14 days, and the payment is another 14 days. And wow, it's so far paid for what we are aiming to do it in few hours and not in days. So yeah, yeah.

I mean, goodness me, I spend, like, if I put my pharma hat on right? And, of course, I don't have one, but I'm just thinking, if I put myself in a farmer's shoes, I've spent months trying to grow something, finally got it, finally got it harvested. I finally send it off to the market, and I have to wait for a payment to come in once it reaches the other end of the spectrum. I mean, it's that is absolutely ridiculous,

and that actually, if you observe very closely, you know that farmers don't have a lot of liquidity, so this nervousness for selling the harvest is the main reason why they are poor. They just give it to anyone who gives them a price, you know. And so. If you walk in anywhere in the world, especially in Southeast Asia and Africa, you just say, I will pay cash. What is the discount I'm receiving? I'm so sure you will be receiving more than 10% discount just for paying cash. You know, imagine that is the struggle of the farmer and struggle of their liquidity.

Well, that's crazy, because they're certainly going to need liquidity upfront, and they also get the lowest end of the of the payment, especially with the paving margins. Are concerned. I know some countries do a support price. Other countries, you know, do a market rate, and that could fluctuate like crazy, which always will impact the farmer at the, you know, at the flag, end of it, right? Yeah. Tell us about how that's working with, you know, places like Indonesia and some of the other spaces.

Is really interesting, because we are working with the government. What we are doing it, we have something called farms and transparent pricing, and then we have a fair future contract. So basically, the government and association will determine a pricing which will be almost kind of fixed with a very little chance of fluctuation. That gives a lot of comfort to the farmer. But what we do in the other side, if we see that the market is ready to pay, we basically transparently pass on that value to the farmer, so that creates an healthy ecosystem, and we always have dialog with the buyer that’s why you should be paying more, and still it is cheaper for you, because we are doing so much of optimization in the center. And I'm carefully selecting the word optimization, because even the middlemen are part of the society. You don't want to remove them. You don't want to over optimize. You want that ecosystem to exist. You don't want to change so much, right? So in that way, you also see, you know, you also receive a lot of local support from these entities, right? Because we are adding value, like, for example, we in Indonesia, we're saying someone build, if you build a warehouse here, we will advise all the farmers to store it there, so that creates a healthy local economy where palms and isn't involved, it is working like a consultant, literally a free consultant, to facilitate these, you know, infrastructure issues.

So, yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so, this is Indonesia, and certain that, you know, interestingly, okay, so, just to pivot this a bit, right, I know that the UAE is, is looking at avenues where they're creating large greenhouses so that they can have local produce. I was over at token 2049, walked into a supermarket. And, you know, I generally have this habit of asking, where does this come from? And or I start reading the labels, right? So one of these, one of these things that they had up there, is that you had tomatoes that were grown in the UAE, and I was asking the guy if that was a mistake, but apparently that that is something that they're doing there. You know, have you? Are you coming across more cases, but from the GCC that that are doing something like this, I'm just curious to curious to find out.

Yeah, absolutely. So UAE is growing close to 8% of their food now, right? Bahrain, for example, 8% of the food. But there is a limit. You know, there are too many, too many individuals living who are and the local weather is not really conducive, and the infrastructure cannot be scaled to that much to 100% growth. What we see in this there is change coming, yes, but look you, wherever you are sitting, you would still prefer to have an orange and avocado, and it's very difficult to grow that locally, right? So there will be, always a fair price opportunity for a farmer, whatever you are growing, as long as you are growing it properly, right? So what do we see is, actually we are encouraging these setup to happen in local so that we get local food. My mom used to say, if it doesn't grow in your local, don't consume the food, right? But we are not that strict. Yet, we would still get all other food imported to us so that we can enjoy various varieties. And at the same time, there has to be a local health farmer, healthy farm or ecosystem, which can supply at least, you know, 50% of your food locally and, yeah, so that will be the ecosystem we. Are experimenting on vertical farming in UAE, and the way we are looking at this as like it need to be fully automated, but it is an in initial stages, hopefully something comes up

understood. Okay, super Thanks for sharing some light on that Yog. I thought was quite fascinating that, you know, that this thing was happening, and I was trying to do a little research around it, because it just to see that a place, in a place that has complete desert environment, was keen on growing its own food. Was really a fascinating movement. But I like, the fact that you've got a handle on it, and you know you're looking at this holistically, which you know only brings me to my next point, right? I know that you're in a phase where you're testing it with between two countries. Of course, you know and you've got a clear understanding of the system. And really bless you for doing this. Because in Indonesia, as you've said, when you have a system where people are writing out on paper by hand, you know, documents that get any commodity moving, that certainly isn't a system that can be sped up, because there's only up to that quantum that you can you can utilize it, even if you use a computer for that matter, to enter data, right? There's only so fast that it can move in so and so, in terms of being able to do that in Indonesia, that's that. That's absolutely brilliant. I know that you know this is revolutionizing from here, what is the next steps that Farmsent is going to explore,

um, we are going to give the sensor to common public. They can actually sponsor it for the farmer, and they will collectively share the value of the data they are contributing. This is one so that is our deep in system, which we are testing it with peak network. And then the trade has already started, but we are going to now onboard more farmers on fifth of June, will be on stage with the top leadership of Indonesia. We will be signing a bit more bigger MOU to include more farmers. The government has been very, very, very supportive the previous government, which is continuing till now, and the new government, which is going to take over in October. Both governments are very supportive and aware of Ammas economy. So this is really good. We're testing right now in one province, so we would be extending that to three provinces and then in the other side, we are onboarding more buyers. So coffee is not going to be the hero product anymore. Is going to be so many of these SKUs, which is, like, you know, vanilla, for example, is so costly elsewhere, it's almost like three times expensive than the source, you know, which is ridiculous, if you just remove the expenses so that that is almost 10 times so there is a lot of room. And also we are mindful that if there is a struggling farmers group that is focusing on a product, we would like to get involved in there to sort that out. Even if it is not a hero product, we can actually pitch in to sort that out and find the relevant buyers. So the idea is to actually bring in a lot of buyers who can actually commit to this. Somebody a few day, few days back, told my partner Salah that we are ready to buy 15 container of coffee within a week, right? So, and these kind of orders have already started coming, so which is really good for the farmers. So a lot of work actually, I think, to keep things short, I would say like we would probably take lot of coffee and not sleep in.

Well, yeah, I mean, that certainly is challenging. And I just realized that as we were speaking, when you were talking about Indonesia, I mean, that's, that's one of the few countries that actually split up like an archipelago, right? There's, it's a series of islands. So it certainly can't be easy to get stuff moving from point A to point B. Absolutely.

Also is like an island country. So everything is so detached and everything is literally having its own culture, right? So it is a challenging place, but very into. Thing, a place where we get tons of support. Of course, we are extending that to Africa. We are negotiating in Zambia, and then hopefully, then Nigeria. We stop a little bit with this Binance issue, a bit. So we said, like, okay, just hold on for some time. But we will, we will come back to Africa, and then there is negotiation going on in Sri Lanka, India, always in in cards, and go to Pakistan, Philippines, and kind of countries so and then find buyers across Europe that showing interest. We had a avocado shipping, completely traceable, from point A to point B from Colombia and us. So we will, we will keep repeating those things. Yeah, lot of, lot of conflict. You I lost you. JP,

Hi, yes, for some reason, I think for some reason this, this cut off. But yeah, I caught the last part of what you said, in terms of where the last part I caught was, was heading to Africa. You're speaking to a number of countries that are interested in what you're doing.

You broke a bit. JP,

check. Sound,

yeah, it's getting better now.

Yes, yes, can you hear me now? Yeah, yeah, clear, okay, super, sorry, Yog. I don't know what's happening. It seems to be a technical issue, it just cut off for a second. Okay, so let me get the last one. Indeed, I think, I think my, I think my, my systems also need a little bit of coffee to stay running efficiently. Super but yoga, I know that we coming towards the end, so I still want to get a few questions out there in terms of, okay, so in terms of, I know we spoke about multiple cases, I know that you're looking to expand, and you know, more power to you and to the team to be able to do that. And I want to, I want to ask if there are certain challenges that, you know, you've come across in trying to make this movement possible.

A lot, actually is from the web2 industry, if I say is with regard to regulation. You know, there is a unnecessary regulatory hurdles in everything, right? So we felt that better to first work with the regulators. Now working with the regulators is literally inviting slowness to your project and but that was a bigger pill for us to solo, right? So we went with that. That means our expansion horizontally might not be as fast as we expected, right? So we can only move to certain countries at a certain point of time, right? So we felt okay. That's okay. We just go ahead with that. So we felt that in web2, in web3 perspective, you know, agriculture is not a fun subject for many. It's not a decent thing that somebody would wake up right sometimes, you see, you know, investment can flow to a memecoin at a faster and better rated like us. Again, it's natural. There is no nervousness there. So we've been managing to do well with that space. Hopefully people will note it. Hopefully people will realize that food security challenges are not of the future. It's happening now. There are governments who are putting so much of effort to sort that out. There is reason why UA is growing, as you said, in a desert, like they're experimenting with rice in a desert. So food security challenges are going to be there and we can't be naive about it, so we are just putting that effort in right direction. And it's Allah and I we have this philosophy and policy that you got to convince and not to really worry about those who are not convinced yet. And so we are just going in that direction. Yeah.

Awesome. That's an interesting take, convince the convinced, okay, and not worry about the others. But I'm certain, I'm certain from what you've shared, and for listeners on the show and those that are going to tune in later, I think you're already on to something. I mean, from the very fact that you guys have focused on, you know, be aware of what you're putting into your body, that you're able to find out the ingredients that are going from the from seeds to your spoon. I think that is really a brilliant way of being able to create a lot of education and awareness around what we're doing. Because consumers are becoming, or at least, they want to be more health conscious. They want to be sure about what they're putting into their systems. And, you know, oddly so I want to tie this back to something that we spoke about much earlier in the show. Is you asked me if I check ingredients right, one of the things that I notice is I used to eat a lot of biscuits, and when doing that, I made it a point one day to just find out, okay, you know, what's the disc, what's the cream biscuit, what's the calorie content of the cream biscuits? And I saw there was some around, you know, about close to 490 per 100 grams, right? And this is an Oreo cookie. So I'm thinking to myself, hey, you know what? Let me switch off this stuff. We'll get to maybe a cream cracker, right? Or some of the biscuits that don't have a cream center. And when I opened that and I checked the ingredients at the back, the calorific content, right, was only about 30 points lower. It made no sense to me.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's crazy when you have time you do a search, because these data are blocked by our centralized agencies, but you do an active search about a certain ODE contributing 79% of American men's infertility by a famous oat company. I don't want to make it sound really controversial, but you can do that, right.

Okay, okay, I think, I think we know. I think we know which one that is the if I'm not mistaken, it's the same, it's the same name as some of the you know, an old American, an old American person, was often called that. So, yeah, I think I know which one you're talking about. That's crazy, that's crazy. But for you that are listening and want in on this inside joke, please do your own research and go and find out. We're not going to reveal the name on the show, but yeah, if you do tweet it in and hey, you know what you will win. You will win the knowledge of knowing that is one of the things you really should not be spending your time eating absolutely crazy yog. It's been, you know, it's been a brilliant having you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. I am not going to let you go without you answering this question, right? What is your personal philosophy? What is the one thing that keeps you going?

Man, very hard question to the end. So if you don't know, I'm a biker, actually, I've been riding literally 75% of my life, you know, yeah, very avid Harley Davidson fan, you know, yeah, and have like, clubs and stuff. The world side of me, right? So one thing we bikers have common is liking the journey more than the destination, you know. So I don't give myself any targets, because there is a thin balance between target and toxic target, you know. I believe like in perma very much, you know. So we all have purpose in life. I don't worry about the results too much at max, it might be just disappoint me a little, you know. I just keep walking the direction I feel. It's collectively great for the world, you know? And that wakes me up in the morning, and I'm fine and looking forward to do things, you know, so philosophies are really inspired by ancient texts and conviction meeting lot of people in the process of traveling across the world. Um, yeah, that's what keeps me going. Yeah,

awesome. Okay, I'm so glad. I'm so glad you mentioned about the holly and you didn't say that the Holly is the only thing keeping you going. But thank you so much for being on the show Yog. Appreciate that. Appreciate your team tuning in from Farmsent, and shout out to you. We have a bunch of questions, but we're really out of time. Some interesting ones. Uh, for example, I see that NECA has put in, you know, countries like Netherlands who are more into animal farming, dairy in particular, you know, are they also covered in the vision of this project? I know nothing. Co founder, tuned in here, Nadja. She says, you know, what are the major systemic challenges involved in supporting farmers on chain, considering the complexities around government and private sector stakeholders would be great if you could, you know, drop them an answer. Your team can drop them and answer to these questions on Twitter. But for now, that's all the time that we have on the show. So you have, once again, thank you so much for accepting our invitation and being here.

Thank you really appreciate for the person who asked about Netherlands, please check our partnership with the nukulae to processing lot of data and artificial intelligence, but we'll drop you the answer. Please take a look at thank you for tuning in and JP, wonderful questions. You've been so engaging fun. Thank you.

Thank you yog. I mean, I have hats off to you, because it's been an amazing conversation. I think you, you know you're really good with your subject, and you're able to draw these, paint these pictures so well, using your words and give us an understanding of the landscape. So once again, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Thank you. Pleasure is mine. JP, thank you so much. Alright,

okay, ladies and gentlemen, that said the show is a wrap before. But before you go, a few announcements. The first one is Nadja Bester will be speaking at the Wiki finance Expo in Hong Kong on the 17th of May. If you're there, please give us a shout out. Uh, also on the 21st she'll be speaking at the Gatherverse XR Summit, and both Jason and Nadja will be at the crypto Expo Dubai on the 20th and 21st of May. So if you're in either in Hong Kong, or you're online at the Gatherverse XR Summit, or you're in Dubai later this month, give us a shout out, and let's see if we can set up a meeting. Be lovely to meet the community, meet the fam. This is JP from AdLunam Inc. Bring you everything about web3. Have a good one. Cheers.

Thank you guys. Take care. Bye bye,

Cheers. Bye, yog.