Akanksha Barot · How I can help · Processors and buyers
Processors and buyers
Traceability built for the field agent sourcing the crop, not just the report at the other end.
Processors and buyers already have real commercial leverage: a repeat transaction relationship, and a direct incentive to invest in supply-side reliability. What usually breaks is the tooling underneath it. Traceability and procurement platforms get built around what leadership needs to report, not what the field agent doing the sourcing will actually use without friction.
Who this is for
- Processors, offtake companies, and buyers with direct commercial and procurement relationships with farmers.
- A traceability or procurement platform built for the compliance report rather than the field agent.
- Procurement agent turnover that has never been diagnosed as a tooling problem.
What usually goes wrong
- 01
Traceability platforms get built for the report, not the sourcing
Traceability and procurement platforms are usually built around what you need to report — compliance, ESG, brand commitments — rather than what the field agent doing the actual sourcing will use without friction.
- 02
Sourcing tools and farmer-relationship tools break the same feedback loop
Sourcing tools and farmer-relationship tools tend to be built as separate systems, which quietly breaks the feedback loop that would otherwise make both better.
- 03
Procurement agent turnover is rarely diagnosed as a tooling problem
Procurement agent turnover is high and rarely diagnosed as a tooling problem, even when it is one — much of what gets called “digitizing procurement” is really just a paper ledger reproduced in an app, with none of the design work that would make it worth using.
What backs it
Harvest purchase as a live transaction: quality capture, price agreement, weighment and payment that lands when it was promised, as one of four core services on the direct-to-farmer platform.
Jiva AgServices, Indonesia, Product Lead, 2021 to 2025A chain of custody from plot to buyer where every record was produced by someone doing their job anyway.
Jiva offtake traceability.Eighteen people across Product, Design, Engineering, Data, Research and Field Ops, reporting to the Chief Product Officer.
Jiva AgServices (Olam Global Holdings)Relevant here
- Crop and produce procurement
Harvest purchase: quality capture, price agreement, weighment, and payment that lands when it was promised.
Source: Jiva, one of four core services on the direct-to-farmer platform. - Traceability
A chain of custody from plot to buyer where every record was produced by someone doing their job anyway.
Source: Jiva offtake traceability. - Leadership reporting
The internal view leadership actually steers on, rather than the deck assembled the night before the board call.
Source: Internal operations tooling at AgriCentral and Jiva.
What working together looks like
- 01
Diagnose the field-boardroom gap first
A Field-Boardroom Gap diagnostic on the procurement or traceability platform, to find the exact place where boardroom reporting requirements have been prioritised over field usability.
- 02
Design one system, not two
Unifying procurement, traceability and farmer engagement into a single platform, designed first for the field agent, since their adoption is what makes the data you need to report actually real.
- 03
Ship, then hand back
Working alongside your procurement and product leads, with the goal that the system survives after I stop being in the room.
What this record is, and what it is not
Procurement and traceability were two of four core services on the platform I built at Jiva: harvest purchase as a live transaction, and a chain of custody from plot to buyer. It is not a portfolio of processor or buyer clients across different commodities. The Field-Boardroom Gap diagnostic and the One System, Not Two principle are built from that experience, not a claim of having run procurement for a named buyer or processor.
Published elsewhere
- PodcastLearnings from 10M downloads with AgriCentral PM Akanksha BarotThe Crop Chronicles, by Jiva. Episode 5, 31 minutes
How AgriCentral reached ten million downloads, why the first year of adoption was slow, and what transferred to Indonesia.
- InterviewLessons from 10 million downloadsJiva, on Medium
The written version. Acquisition, the seven languages, and the interface decisions that came out of watching farmers hold a phone.