Industries
Trace crops and inputs from smallholder farms through cooperatives, processors and export, with the farm, finance and logistics data needed to plan, lend and prove origin.
01How the work happens today
Agricultural value chains in Africa begin with millions of smallholders who often have no formal records. Farm details sit in cooperative notebooks, agent surveys and NGO programs, each with its own list of farmers. Inputs such as seed and fertilizer are sold through dealers or supplied on credit. Crops are weighed at collection points and moved by truck to aggregators, processors and ports. Export buyers now ask for proof of origin, deforestation checks and food safety records.
Without a shared farmer and plot record, lenders cannot judge risk, so smallholders pay more for credit or get none. Input loans are repaid in kind and lost in the paperwork. Cooperatives cannot show which lot came from which farms. Traceability for export is assembled by hand before each shipment. Weather and price signals reach farmers late or not at all. Each program that collects its own farmer list adds cost and drops the data when the project ends.
02A starting model for the sector
13 core things
The nouns of the sector. Each object has an identity, properties and a history, and maps to records in the source systems.
8 core relationships
How the objects connect. Links turn separate tables into a graph that people and agents can walk.
6 governed actions
What people and approved agents may do. Each action has rules, an approver where needed and a log entry.
03What changes on the ground
Situation
A cooperative wants to give members fertilizer on credit, repaid at harvest. The lender has no history on most members and cannot tell which plots are viable.
What it does
Farmer, plot, delivery and repayment records are joined. The system proposes a limit per farmer from past deliveries and plot size, and tracks each loan until repayment in cash or crop.
Human decides
The cooperative board and the lender approve limits. Field officers can override with notes when they know local conditions.
04Sources to connect
We read from your existing systems first and write back only through approved actions. Every source has a named owner. Where connectivity is weak or records are on paper, we plan for queued sync and OCR with human review.
Free 30 minutes with an engineer.
05Laws that shape the design
| Country | Law | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Nigeria | NDPA 2023 | Farmer registries hold personal and location data, so consent, purpose and security measures apply. |
| Kenya | Data Protection Act 2019 | Farmer and group data needs a lawful basis, and sharing with buyers or lenders needs clear purpose. |
| Ghana | Data Protection Act 2012 | Registration and principles on collection and retention apply to farmer data, including commodity board programs. |
| Rwanda | Law on Personal Data Protection 2021 | Cross-border sharing of farmer data with buyers may have conditions. |
| Export markets | Buyer and import rules on traceability | Rules such as deforestation checks in some export markets can shape evidence requirements. |
Commodity boards, land and agriculture ministries, and import market regulations add further rules. Treat this list as examples. Confirm applicable law with counsel in each country and market. Examples only, not legal advice. Confirm with counsel.
06How each product serves this sector
Model plane
Models farmers, plots, lots and shipments so lenders, cooperatives and exporters share one record. Zeus also provides the dashboards for harvest, repayment and traceability.
Trust plane
Controls which cooperative officers, agents, lenders and buyers can see which farmers and lots, so sharing is scoped and can be revoked.
Control plane
Governs advisory and loan-support agents, so they use approved agronomy content and permitted farmer data, and cannot disburse credit alone.
Runtime plane
Runs the platform and holds field data privately, including offline sync from collection points, with portable hosting for the country in question.
Observation plane
Keeps an audit trail of changes to lots, weights and certificates, which supports traceability claims and dispute resolution.
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Real-time visibility across ports, corridors, customs, fleets and warehouses, with one shipment record that carriers, forwarders, shippers and agencies can trust.
One governed view of customers, accounts, agents and transactions across core banking, mobile money and branch networks, so risk, fraud, credit and compliance teams work from the same facts.
Give informal merchants, distributors and marketplaces a shared view of stock, sales, payments and demand, so they can restock sooner, get credit and serve customers better.
Experience you can lean on
Immersed in technology and across many different verticals, so the people on your project have done this before.
Agriculture and food
Tell us the problem. An engineer, not a salesperson, answers.
Trace crops and inputs from smallholder farms through cooperatives, processors and export, with the farm, finance and logistics data needed to plan, lend and prove origin.
