According to the Food and the Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the effect of pandemic SARS-CoV’19 on agriculture has given rise to a global problem which in turn needs to a demanding global response. As a result of this pandemic prevailing the world, agriculture is on the top of the affected sectors. Food supply chains as well as food security are among the crucial concerns embedded within agriculture decline. In addition to this, the World Food Program (WFP) for example emphasizes that “Coronavirus has put 14 million people at risk of missing meals in Latin America and the Caribbean.” This on the same hand puts burdens on human lives, malnutrition, trade, public health, and the economic activity as dwelling sequences. Accordingly, the problems integrated within these burdens could be underlined by three main categories: economy, health, and socio-culture.

From an economic perspective, the cycle of the farming process has four main sections starting from farming, transportation, consumers, and retail. Farms are greatly impacted by the availability of the economic resources which would be more affiliated to a futuristic concern than a current one. According to FAO, most of the world countries’ food resources will be sufficient only for the upcoming 2 months, after which an observed decline in such resources would be highlighted. Added to that, employment is also a potential economic resource that, to a large extent, will turn into a burden. This is because the major share of farmers is related to rural areas. FAO says that only 21 percent of the global population receives adequate coverage, which is much less in rural areas as a result of the economically driven barriers.

In terms of public health, consumers are used to the fact of getting their foods from retailers such as malls and shops. This phenomenon in turn has its major threat to the recent guidelines imposed to eliminate the spread of COVID-19 because it enforces crowdedness as well as increasing its frequency. If this concern is applied to the food cycle, there would be a higher risk of contamination, hence decreasing the focus on public health as it should be. For instance, the agri-food system involves many steps that involve an abundance of human interactions such as the distribution of seeds, animals, market access, and purchasing from producers. In the long run, this is intimidated to stretch to imbalances in the supply and demand chain.

Socio-culturally, there is a hidden part of the whole imposed as well as the proposed guidelines that need further consideration which is the awareness. According to WFP, the current percentage of farmers and consumers being aware of the pandemic impact is low. Dwelling on that, consumers along with farmers should be on top priority for having a major share of awareness. For consumers, panic buying is dominating their modes of life. In the short term, this might not be increasing the impact of COVID-19, but after a couple of months, if this is not controlled, starvation as well as malnutrition would cope with the pandemic.

Ghaïth has been named after an Arabic word that means giving. Thus, it shares positive meanings and values for Arabic and African communities, where our project to be initially located. Ghaïth 1.0 Platform is our integrated system to solve grand challenges associated with the recent pandemic COVID-19 regarding food supply and the agricultural ecosystem in developing countries. Since human-to-human interaction is the main reason for virus transmission according to the World Health Organization, our virtual platform replaces traditional grocery and fresh retail channels including supermarkets and hypermarkets. Through it, customers either individuals or corporates will be able to access agricultural products and goods and purchase them online. It will also serve as an online market for farmers and producers to showcase their products; transportation to be provided via our local partners.

For customers, individuals and corporates, they will be able to;

1. Compare products based on quality, price, etc., and purchase their order in a zero-human-interaction environment.
2. Using big data analysis and deploying machine learning, Ghaïthalert is a premium service that alerts consumers to most purchased items and recommends certain purchases to avoid market crisis and future shortages.
3. By integrating an IoT system in our premium transportation services, consumers are able to track the location and the condition of their purchases during delivery.

For farmers and producers, they will benefit from;

1. Online Selling Platform through which farmers and producers are able to showcase and sell their products online.
2. The Production Stock Exchange Service;
   In this section, we aim to solve the economical crisis associated with the pandemic in order to refresh the agricultural ecosystem’s overall cash and fund. In this system, large-scale farms propose their production for sale in advance, and corporates compete to reserve their stock and fund the agricultural process beforehand. It psychologically encourages investors to cover large-scale farms’ financial needs and take the risk for the greater good in the future. This service is limited to large-scale companies, farms, and producers to ensure the minimal risk in case they could not fulfill the market need. “Transaction expenses” is our main revenue stream, from which an amount of money is dedicated to reinvesting in smaller-scale farms. Applying blockchain technology will increase our service security, transparency, and traceability.
3. For large-scall farms’ expansion plans to fulfill the market need, Ghaïth, using machine learning, analyzes NASA resources and data, recommends best locations for agricultural purposes in terms of the type of sand/soil and the availability of water resources, according to LP DAAC.
4. Upon market data analysis, our system recommends certain products and seeds upon market need and demand.

Since awareness is another big issue in rural areas and developing countries, and since word of mouth is the most efficient tool for the spread of knowledge and information, we will be using a similar model to promote our system and raise awareness among farmers. Whatever country of operations, Egypt for example, will be divided into segments geographically. Then, one or two major farmers from each segment/area will be contacted. It is, then, his responsibility to share the system among others. For example, farmer A joined the program upon the recommendation of farmer B. Then, farmer B is rewarded with points and bonuses.