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Zimbabwean meat startup wins EU Award

by Kudakwashe Vhenge


By Trevor Makonyonga


A thriving Zimbabwean goat startup, Goat Orders, won an award at the just ended EU-Africa The Post Crisis Journey Hackathon.


Goat Orders won through their product GotCash, in the Digital Economy category in the just ended EU: Africa The Post Crisis Journey Hackathon

The European-Africa online hackathon program, sponsored by the government of Estonia aimed to find innovative solutions to socio-economic problems that have been further escalated by the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 


Explaining the product, Goat Orders’ Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer, Brian Zulu said that their aim is to provide a direct link between farmers and consumers.


“Through #GotCash, we aim to connect farmers directly to consumer demand, decentralized financing, goat production protocols, and supply chain services. #GotCash will be powered by smart contracts utilizing blockchain technology and will facilitate multi-party transactions, knowledge sharing, verification processes and community activities.”


“#GotCash is doing the seemingly impossible by bridging the gap between an ancestral activity like goat farming with cutting edge technology like blockchain. #GotCash is combining tradition, culture and website design new technology to create new value,” he said.


After realizing the many deficiencies in the Zimbabwean goat farming industry, the Goat Orders team aimed to find a modern solution that is rooted in tradition.


#GotCash is a goat value chain management system aimed at bringing transparency and fairness in the goat transaction process while improving farmers’ lives and livelihoods.


The team said that they realized that smallholder goat farmers are unable to leverage opportunities and generally suffer from lower economic returns.


Goat Orders co-founder Masimba Biriwasha said that many farmers are unable to reinvest in proper goat farming practices as they remain entrenched in a cyclical loop which further alienates then from market access.

 
“Goat farmers face challenges including lack of knowledge, poor access to market, unbanked and lack of funds. Goat Orders’ #GotCash aims to empower smallholder goat farmers with the capacity to be professional goat producers that produce high quality goats which will fetch high prices in the marketplace.

“#GotCash will enable farmers to have direct access to the best practice goat production protocols to maximize production and earnings,” said Biriwasha.


Blockchain, which the #GotCash is based upon, is a ledger of accounts and transactions that are written and stored by all participants. 


It promises a reliable source of truth about the state of goat production, inventories, and contracts, where the collection of such information is often incredibly costly. 


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