Rejoindre la mèche
Commitment is at the heart of their business. These men and women are inspired by the world to act differently and sustainably, making their environment a channel for expression, creativity, innovation and solidarity. Finance, culture, crafts, industry and the media are just some of the fields embodied by these personalities, who have agreed to be in cahoots with us for a meeting to share their universe.

Michael has been CEO of farmer connect® since June 2020 and is a passionate advocate of his mission to humanize consumption through technology. Years spent working for food giants such as Nestlé and Mondelēz have given him a deep understanding of the challenges facing the coffee and chocolate industries.
Based in Geneva,
farmer connect®
offers a blockchain platform that enables farmers, consumers and intermediaries to digitally connect to agricultural supply chains, promising to ensure traceability and data validation by all parties.
Michael is fascinated by technology, great food and how they can be brought together.
He likes his morning coffee black, fruity and light, but above all fair to people and planet.  

Hello Michael, you joined farmer connect® a year and a half ago. What brought you to this world of companies working to generate change towards greater sustainability? 
It’s a real construction. I have a passion for all aspects of technology. I got my first computer at the age of 6, so I’m a real geek, and at the same time I’m passionate about food. I really like this industry because it’s close to people and their behavior, and very much rooted in the real world. When the opportunity arose to work with farmer connect®, to take the company from where it was and lead it to growth, there was a kind of logic between technology on the one hand and agri-food on the other. And then at my advanced age now (laughs), trying to make a difference. We want to make this difference, particularly at the source of the products manufactured by the industries we work with, to try and create more value and remuneration at the origin of the products and shared value by bringing everyone on board. It’s not just about being activists for change, it’s also about being federators, creating an ecosystem and getting people to understand that if we don’t all work together from the beginning of the chain – from the farmer-producer to the consumer – we won’t make a difference on a large scale. So that’s what really motivated me in this farmer connect® adventure. 
It was like the planets aligned and you found your place?
Yes, it’s a kind of marriage in paradise. It’s something I’m passionate about personally, the technical aspect, but it’s also functional because it’s my job, my expertise, so I know what needs to be done. I’ve found a real mission. 
Can you explain what farmer connect®what your vision is and what you’re doing in practical terms to contribute to this transition to sustainability?
The vision of farmer connect® is to humanize consumption through technology, and that’s really our mission. And how do we do this, by providing products that contribute to product traceability, transparency behind these products and promote a more sustainable agriculture and value chain. We achieve this with the help of three tools.
The first deals with the origin of products: at the moment, there’s a really big problem with the first kilometer, it’s really a murky area, a black box. We don’t really know what’s going on, it’s difficult to go into detail right down to the level of the farmer. We have a product which is a kind of electronic wallet: you buy a wallet, it’s empty, and then you put in bills, coins, shopping lists, loyalty cards, credit cards, photos of your children… He’ll start to look like us. We do the same with farmers, and we also offer to validate the information they put in their portfolio with a third party, who will say “yes, I bought or sold such and such a product, at such and such a volume, at such and such a price, this farmer has such and such farming practices, he has such and such certificates, he’s been around for so many years, he works with so many partners, he has a family, you can see the size of his field, he’s never cut down any trees next to it, he uses so much water, emits so much CO2 etc.”. This system allows  to inform and validate product origin information.
It’s important to emphasize that producers remain masters of their data, owning it and deciding where and how it is shared. It’s very important for us not to generate a kind of digital neo-colonialism, except that there’s a big risk all the same, and we’ve seen in recent years that technology can be used for virtuous or imperialistic ends.
The second tool is a platform that sits in the middle, between farmers and consumers. It’s a blockchain in which all the data from every stage of coffee production is entered, from the farmer to dry grinding, wet grinding, export port, shipping, import port, warehouse, retailer and finally the brand. At each stage, the data enters this chain, which is by definition unforgeable and immutable, like all the properties of the blockchain. 
Is the added value of using blockchain really to make data more reliable and secure?
Yes, it’s a technology that allows different players to contribute without the players having to share everyone’s data in a totally transparent and open way, which wouldn’t work in the society we live in. And above all, it’s immutable, meaning that there’s a real incentive to enter verified and correct data, because you can always go back and find out who, when, what and where the data has been integrated. 
 
So no one can modify or falsify existing data?
In fact, it’s immutable once the data has been entered into the blockchain. This doesn’t mean that the information is correct; it may be false, but in reality there’s very little incentive to enter false data, because since it’s immutable, you can be caught out by the system, which actually encourages good practice.
To continue on blockchain, a subject that can be difficult to grasp, it’s at the heart of your concept, without it you wouldn’t have been able to create these solutions right?
Yes, that was really behind the design of farmer connect® , which was born in a value chain. We create a chain, and that chain is made up of papers, receipts, cash, emails, Excel files and phone calls. Still, it’s subject to a huge number of errors, problems and falsifications. If we want to create trust and value, it has to be more solid, and blockchain is an excellent way of ensuring this. It has multiple applications, but for the supply chain it’s a really good solution. It’s almost in the name!
We made the costly but also beneficial choice of partnering with one of the biggest blockchain players at the time, which was IBM. It’s been our strategic partner from the start, because we don’t just want to do pilots or proofs of concept here and there, we want to make a real difference across the value chain. That’s why we needed a partner we could trust, so that we could offer security and trust, and accelerate and develop very quickly, because our customers are big companies. They may be doing a pilot with us, but we’ll already have discussed scalability with them, because we’re talking about tens of thousands of tons of raw materials that could become traceable, transparent and verifiable. We absolutely had to be equipped for this, which is why we chose to work with IBM right from the start.
Finally, there’s a third product: once you’ve made all that effort, you either keep it to yourself or talk about it. It still makes sense to share with consumers and explain how it’s done, which is why we’ve created a product called
“Thank My Farmer
which gives access to all the stages in the manufacture of the product via a QR code. It’s a web app, so there’s no need to register or download an application, just take out your phone and flash the QR code.
The other thing
“Thank My Farmer
 is to support the sustainable development projects behind the products. If I take the example of the product in front of me, it’s a 100% Indonesian coffee produced by UCC, one of the world’s largest roasters. This coffee is a 100% Indonesian single origin, and it just so happens that Indonesia is also home to orangutans. This brand is called
Orang-Utan
and supports sustainable development projects in the Indonesian forest to preserve the environment of these great apes. As a consumer, you can participate and support these projects through our application by giving a like, sharing or donating money, any amount in any currency. For its part, the brand contributes the equivalent of the amount donated by the consumer. 
Chocolate and coffee are notoriously un-ecological and unethical, due in part to the greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy use and environmental impact associated with their production and consumption. Would you say that your solutions are helping to make these sectors cleaner?
Yes, I think so, and there are two aspects to it: on the one hand, there’s the practical side of farming, and on the other, there are the farmers themselves. 
If we look at the curves and rates for coffee over the last twenty years, they are either stable or decreasing, while world demand has exploded. And if we look ahead to 2050, demand will triple as Indians and Chinese start drinking coffee. It’s an explosion, it’s really exponential. If we put ourselves in the shoes of a farmer in Rwanda, when the curves show stagnation or decline, will he recommend that his children continue to grow coffee? So what do we do? Either we improve their living conditions and remuneration, or we do nothing and they retrain. In the industry, we’ve run out of supplies and can’t keep up with demand. There’s a huge problem: in ten or twenty years’ time, we selfish little Westerners who love our morning coffee may find ourselves without any. Add to that global warming and all the problems facing certain crops that are in real danger of disappearing. In coffee, for example, there are only two species: robusta, which grows on the plains and is fairly stable, and arabica, which grows at an altitude of 1,000 meters. In ten or fifteen years’ time, we may have to climb to 1,400 metres to be able to continue supplying Arabica, the finest coffee found in all premium brands. So there are a lot of threats. 
By the way, a third species of coffee has been discovered or rediscovered, very close to Arabica. Can you tell me about it?
Yes, in fact, they found a species of wild coffee that was already known but had been abandoned in favor of the more productive robusta. There’s a lot of hope behind
stenophylla
 because crossing it with either of the other two species could make them more resistant to climate change, and even improve their taste, in the case of robusta.
 
What are the major challenges ahead for these sectors? 
The first and foremost challenge is to ensure that farmers always have something to do, and in particular something to produce, not just for industry but also for themselves. We certainly don’t want them all turning to exotic crops that supply the suburbs and streets of our cities because they grow faster than coffee or cocoa. So the challenge is to support local agriculture, to support and promote a minimum wage for all these people, and also to ensure that farming practices become more virtuous.
Another challenge is to curb deforestation, use less water and fertilizer, promote carbon sequestration and develop regenerative agriculture. All this becomes possible because farmers and producers have a longer-term vision, they are more informed, more connected, more digitalized, more transparent and value is more shared. In some countries, farmers are tearing up their entire crop because the rate for one crop has fallen by 15 points, and they’re switching to palm oil, soya or rubber. It’s dramatic because we’re impoverishing the soil, we’re short-sighted, we’re using a lot of water, and when the soil is no longer rich enough, we’re going to cut down whole swathes of forest to regain fertile soil.
The impact we want to have is to help generate more shared value, transparency and traceability, which then enables us to have a premium on price because consumers are willing to review their consumption behavior and consume less but better. This premium must be returned to the origin of the products. We already have proof that it works.
We have partnered with
Cooxupé
the world’s largest coffee cooperative in Brazil. A single cooperative represents the equivalent of the fifth largest coffee-producing country in the world, Brazil being the leading producer. They send 60 million 60kg bags of coffee around the world every year. Thanks to us, they are already marketing traced coffee at a higher price: one of their customers, a coffee trading company called
Sucafina
(the founder of Farmer Connect was one of them) paid a premium and decided to redistribute 50% of this premium to the farmers and the other 50% to local sustainable development projects, because they knew that as traders they would be able to resell this coffee at a higher price to their customers. The customer knows that this coffee is traced, so he’ll be able to claim it from a consumer point of view, who will be reassured and potentially more likely to buy this coffee rather than another. The brand is happy, the trader is happy because he has sold for more, the cooperative has sold for more and is happy because the farmers are better paid and because it has financed sustainable development projects.
That’s the only way it works, because if you bang everyone over the head with a hammer and tell them they’re not doing it right, or that it only has to benefit so-and-so, you’re not respecting the intrinsic structure of a supply chain: everyone in the chain has to be on the same page. Perhaps in the long term, some players will jump ship because they took too much in the process, or didn’t play the game, or weren’t transparent enough, but I’d say that’s a bit of the point: it will clean up the value chain.
Moving up the value chain, retailers have a major responsibility for the income they pay farmers. How do you manage to influence things in the areas that concern you?
A few weeks ago, we launched a whole series of references with Amazon in the five largest European countries with their in-house brand called “Happy Belly”, so retailers are also getting involved and seeing the same benefits. In the Netherlands, we worked with
HEMA
the Dutch Ikea, 70% of whose coffee portfolio will be traced.
 
But are they prepared to cut their margins? 
In fact, they do it because they haven’t yet seen the return on their investment. They invest with us, they invest in their suppliers, they scrape their margins to do it. 
 
This seems to me to be an important message or signal, given that distributor margins in the agri-food sector are generally very comfortable. 
Exactly! After all, they don’t all do it out of piety; they also think they’ll get something out of it. 
The important thing is that he does it and that the system changes!
Yes, and they’re not just doing it as a marketing stunt. Of course, this type of problem does exist, and some people could do it with a reference accompanied by a communication campaign, as is well known in marketing. They can try to do it with us, but it will hold up to a certain point, because if their approach doesn’t go all the way, it loses all coherence and therefore no longer fits into the marketing discourse. If you’re present on “Thank My Farmer” and you’re traced by the blockhain giving access to all the elements in the value chain, you’ve got to play the game, otherwise it’s a bit like an elephant in the corridor – it’s a dangerous game.
 
So your partners are very consciously committed to transparency.
Yes, absolutely, but I’d like to come back to this notion of transparency, which I think should be taken with a grain of salt. If you want to be transparent for transparency’s sake, and really share everything, I don’t think that’s always very virtuous.
If we take the example of a cappuccino on the streets of Geneva in a well-known chain, it costs between 4 and 5 francs and the reality is that only 1 to 5 centimes goes back to the farmer. So if I come to you tomorrow and tell you that it was 1 centime and we’re going up to 2 centimes, the reality is that we’ve doubled the farmer’s income, but if I tell you it’s 2 centimes you’ll still find that very shocking. So it’s complicated to be 100% transparent if it’s not accompanied by education. I don’t think you can criticize everyone in the marketing community by telling them they’re just greenwashing. Sometimes you need to do things in stages, to explain them, to educate, so that perception doesn’t completely override good practice, because that would be counter-productive. Some companies take things one step at a time, and that’s perfectly normal. 
The fact that the will is there, that a roadmap exists to bring about this transformation, that’s what’s essential. And it has to be said that making such a transition for a long-established company can be extremely complicated, but no less necessary of course. 
I also think it’s so important that we take a break from 1, 2 or 3 points of profit to invest, because the future of many of us is at stake. 
We know that agriculture is the world’s biggest vertical in terms of industry, affecting a billion people every day, including employees, farmers and producers. It’s the industry that has the biggest impact, both good and bad, so if we can transform it, we’re changing our lives, our children’s lives and our children’s children’s lives, which is super important.
Tell me a little about the chocolate industry.
Chocolate is a highly concentrated industry, with three major industrial players processing cocoa beans.  You have to be able to get into at least one of these companies to make a difference, but the reward is that it can be very transformative. And cocoa, like coffee, is also evolving towards more “single origins”, towards specialties, and we’re starting to make “clean label” chocolate by removing lots of things that aren’t very good in chocolate recipes. It’s quite comparable with the evolution of coffee over the last twenty years or so, with specialty coffees, small bistros and also what has been created by Starbucks and all these coffee chains.  
 
A final, broader question: what would you say are the three essential things needed to change the world, to change the paradigm? 
The first thing is to try to move away from this idea of competition towards an idea of coopetition, where we’re still in a capitalist system but where we consider that the addition of different forces makes it possible to create something greater. We try to prove it every day by bringing together people who have nothing to do with each other on the same platform and in the same project: we have brands, merchants, cooperatives who are all competitors on the platform and who never talk to each other because they don’t have the right or are afraid to talk to each other, and who use the same services.

If we work together, we can change a lot of things.

There’s another thing that’s quite linked to technology, and that’s respect. Respect is an important word, especially respect for the origin and respect for the data. There are some big tech giants who are moving in the right direction, but I think they’ve taken huge shortcuts and done things that shouldn’t have been done, so concentrated, so intrusive, so complicated that you lose people along the way and you don’t respect the user. It’s also a business construction: free access brings with it business models that we try to hide in order to keep it free. As they say, when it’s free, you’re the product!

So it’s very important to have respect for the people behind the technology, and for the technology to serve the people.

The third thing for me is sharing. That’s what we’re trying to achieve: value sharing. If we look at coffee, it’s a 200 billion market, and our ambition is certainly to create efficiency for our customers, but above all we want to create value, because we know that if we only create efficiency, it will only benefit our customers. Whereas if we create value, we have a chance of distributing it, if we go from 200 to 220 billion, we have a chance that a good part of it will go back to the country of origin. We need to move upwards, create value and redistribute value. And never forget where it comes from, because without them there’s nothing.

Beyond all the legislative, technological and financial aspects, there’s also the human aspect.

When you know that a farmer in West Africa has never tasted a square of chocolate in his whole life, even though he’s spent it growing cocoa beans and doesn’t even know where they go, just making that link and making it a two-way street and not just a one-way street has a lot of value. 
 
Do you receive testimonials from farmers?
There was a report on coffee in the programme
TTC on RTS
in which they told all the Swiss that their country exports more coffee than chocolate and cheese. On this occasion I did a duplex with Usha, who is one of our partners in Brazil, and she expressed in her own words the value she saw in it, and in particular this link and the excitement she felt at knowing that people would understand what was behind the coffee they were drinking, what she was doing, understanding that it was the family farm she had taken over, that there were 20 of them and so on. 
 
Thank you very much Michael!
With pleasure, thank you.

We’d love to hear your inspiring stories! If you’d like to try your hand at the Proust questionnaire, or share your experience, commitment, tips or gripes, go to the “Share with us ” discussion forum on the La Mèche platform, here:

Questionnaire de Proust

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *