Aggie Global is a social business creating a virtuous food supply chain by connecting people to place and food. We operate over two countries, Fiji and Australia, to help farmers in remote communities overcome challenges associated with income generation. By working with local producers, we promote a connection to traditional and cultural foods made by Indigenous People.
Fijian Agriculture Sector
Fiji heavily relies on tourism to keep it’s economy going. Like many Pacific Islands, Fiji’s tourism sector imports 70% of its fresh fruit and vegetables, yet one third of Fiji’s population relies on agriculture as it’s primary source of income. This has resulted in a huge disconnect between local farmers and key buyers, creating a broken food supply chain.
Middlemen are unreliable and money hungry, buyers are looking for a consistent supply of products whilst farmers struggle to communicate with buyers to sell their traditional foods and earn a living. As a result, farmers are being forced to waste food and many rural community members are living below the poverty line.
With outbreaks of Covid-19 interrupting international travel, over 350,000 Fijians working in tourism lost their jobs throughout 2020. On top of this, an equivalent number of smallholder, subsistent farmers are struggling to access markets to sell their produce. For many farmers, 80% of their buyers cancelled orders as soon as Covid-19 hit. People of all backgrounds are being left in the lurch and high quality, fresh produce is being wasted due to inefficiencies in the food supply chain.
Now Fiji is in their second month of lockdowns and in dire need of support. Households no longer have breadwinners and are struggling to afford food. During recent lockdowns, some supermarkets have closed down, making access to fresh fruit and vegetables even more difficult. Travel restrictions have also limited what markets farmers can access to sell their produce.
Fijians need a way to access fresh food, whilst supporting local farmers. Without this, we can not build healthy, resilient communities.
Aggie Global's Story
Aggie Global was founded by the Paisley Twins, Lisa and Zoe Paisley. Once they completed their university studies, the Paisley Twins quickly moved to Fiji to understand the challenges smallholder farmers were facing everyday.
After interviewing over 100 farmers in Fijian villages, The Paisley Twins discovered that farmers weren’t struggling to produce food, rather they struggled to access profitable markets. Then, the Paisley Twins spoke to buyers and found that there was a lack of trust between local farmers and buyers.
After hearing these stories, Lisa and Zoe launched Aggie Global’s e-commerce platform in December 2019 to connect small farmers to big markets, whilst helping buyers understand the supply of Fijian produce and to get to know the people behind the food. Our ultimate goal is to alleviate poverty and food insecurity wherever we can, especially within marginalised groups.
2020 was a big year for everyone, but at Aggie Global it was a year all about adapting and staying true to our mission, including launching our Australian branch with the aim to empower Indigenous suppliers and create an inclusive Bushfood industry.
When we launched the platform in 2019, our products and website design was tailored to chefs and procurement officers in the tourism sector. However, during the pandemic we had to quickly change our target audience which was tough but our community stuck with us to keep us moving ahead and creating more positive impact for our suppliers.
We now have over 100 individual consumers purchasing Fijian products through us. During the most recent lockdowns in Fiji, we delivered over 100 boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables in just 2 weeks. But this is only the start as Covid-19 clusters grow and lockdowns are extended, we need your support so we can continue this work.
Aggie Global Australia (Aggie Gifts)
With the launch in Australia, Aggie Global focuses on connecting Aussie buyers with Australian producers and Indigenous Growers. We started in Australia after hearing that 99% of suppliers within the native Bushfood Industry are non-Indigenous People.
We are on a mission to bring Indigenous suppliers and producers back into an a sector of the food industry that is crucial to their culture. By working with other social businesses and Indigenous suppliers directly, we can share our First Nations culture and traditions whilst consumers discover Australia's native foods.
Aggie Global in Australia is different to that in Fiji, where instead of food boxes we create unique Aussie inspired Gift Boxes that source Bushfoods from Indigenous suppliers and support small Aussie social businesses. Although it's a different product, we follow the same mission to support and empower local producers to overall create positive social change in remote communities.
What We Do and the Activities Being Funded
Aggie Global is more than just an ecommerce platform. We are a social business sharing farmers stories to highlight the people behind the food and the impact buyers are having every time they support local, smallholder farmers growing traditional and cultural crops.
Offline and when it is safe to do so, we host monthly workshops and events to train our farmers on a variety of topics. Many of these workshops upskill our farmers so they can diversify the crops they are growing, or to value add their products to improve product marketability.
Although our mission is farmer focused, we also know that Fijian families are doing it tough right now. For many families, the last 12 months has made it extremely difficult to purchase food. As a result, Aggie Global started our Sponsored Food Box Program, where individuals could gift a box of fresh fruit and vegetables to Fijian families in need.
Based on a growing need and number of families that applied for the program, Aggie Global needs more help to support our Food Box Program. We want to be able to provide fresh fruit and vegetables to 50+ Fijian families throughout 2021.
We need your support to make all this happen. Food Security and Poverty Alleviation is a complex challenge that needs to be addressed in multiple ways on an on-going basis. This is why we run our workshops, food box programs and have our ecommerce platform live, to tackle the problem from multiple angles.
The Farmers we work with
A big aspect of Aggie Global is our community. We have built up a community of over 150 farmers in Fiji, all actively looking to increase sales or their production capacity of their farm.
Of these 150+ farmers
- 75% are female producers or female owned agri-businesses.
- 65% of our farmers are classified as smallholder or subsistent farmers.
- 25% of our Fijian farmers are organically certified, however over 60% implement organic practices on their farm, yet they cannot afford the certification.
Our Impact So far
Through our work we have increased farmer income by 5 times the national average in Fiji.
One of our value adding workshops reached over 400 farmers in Fiji, to help them tap into a new market and create a new revenue stream for themselves.
During 2020, we redirected $30,000 back to Fijian farmers by helping them sell their produce. This money was distributed to 40 households around Fiji, benefitting over 160 individuals.
