Idea 285 of 500. Cluster 14: Farm to shelf
Drip-irrigation installation and maintenance businesses for the dry zone
The mechanism, from the book
The smallholder sells raw to a collector at the gate and the collector sells to a packer who puts his own name on it. Denmark's farmers got rich the day they owned the creamery.
Every idea in cluster 14 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Install a drip line on one dry-zone plot at cost, for a farmer who agrees to record water, labour and yield for a season against the field next to it. Then show the neighbours the two plots side by side and quote them a price per acre for installation and a yearly maintenance fee. Signed quotes from neighbouring farmers are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A dry-zone farmer who loses crops in the dry months and will pay for a system that waters the plants, not the ground.
- What leaves today
- Scarce water runs off open channels in the dry zone, so crops that would earn more in the dry months are not planted.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. ElevenThe Mechanisms
Denmark's co-operative dairies and the binding contract that held them
More from cluster 14
- 271A farmers' co-operative dairy in the hill country selling cheese and yoghurt under its own brand
- 272Buffalo-milk mozzarella and ghee for the hotels and for export
- 273Fruit and vegetable drying: mango, pineapple, papaya, jackfruit and okra as premium snacks and soup mixes for Europe and the Gulf
- 274Frozen tropical fruit pulp for the smoothie chains of the world
- 275Heritage rice varieties grown under contract and sold at ten times the commodity price
- 276Organic certification services for smallholder groups, shared so the cost is bearable
Idea 285 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.