{"id":24,"date":"2017-07-31T11:55:09","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T11:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/?page_id=24"},"modified":"2017-09-29T20:31:59","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T20:31:59","slug":"not-your-normal-summer-job","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/not-your-normal-summer-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Your Normal Summer Job"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Schandorf, head of farmer services at Farmerline, who has all of the passion and energy needed for the job.<\/p><\/div>\n

Coming into the office Monday mornings, sitting down to the team meetings, and typing up case study drafts at Farmerline headquarters, it can be easy to forget that what we are doing isn’t normal. What Farmerline as a whole is doing isn’t normal. The daily routine, fast pace, and company presentations make it feel like the other technology companies I’ve worked with, but after taking a peek under the hood I’ve come to realize that I got to be a part of something truly special.<\/p>\n

That peek under the hood comes every time we visit the field, and it never ceases to bring with it a breath of fresh air. We wake up at 5, meet our team at the filling station, and caravan out of Kumasi for a few hours. The smog starts to thin, the multistory buildings fall away, and suddenly everything is green: dense forests and tangled crop fields, interrupted periodically by a small village built up with clay blocks and cement. I never know exactly where we’re going, but eventually we pull into one of these villages and find a group of farmers already assembled and waiting for us.<\/p>\n

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The typical workshop setup: everyone gets a front row seat.<\/p><\/div>\n

There’s no financial incentive for the farmers to be there, nothing Farmerline is giving away to convince them to leave their fields for the day, but the farmers come anyway, a testament to the connection that Farmerline has developed by working with them and for them. Seeing their excitement is what really made me realize the kind of movement that we are participating in: a movement to improve the lives of smallholder farmers and give them the opportunity to improve their own lives.<\/p>\n

Caleb, Marisa and I have been working on the latest pilot: a loan program where farmers can buy inputs like insecticides on credit. It sounds simple enough on paper, and talking about it in the office is like talking about any other program, but standing in the field watching the Farmerline team explain the idea to the farmers puts everything into perspective. Providing farmers with access to inputs during planting when they are needed, and allowing them to pay back after harvest is<\/p>\n

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You can’t fake smiles like these<\/p><\/div>\n

revolutionary, and it illustrates the deep understanding Farmerline has with the people it is dedicated to serving. It’s no wonder farmers trust them: the farmers make up its very foundation.<\/p>\n

In one community, we conducted the typical workshop before handing out the inputs to the farmers. Marisa and I were standing by taking notes, and one farmer approached us, bottles of Aceta Star in hand, and gave us the biggest smile. He tried a few lines of broken English that turned out quite poetic: “Thank you! Thank you for bringing the medicine that will cure our fields!”<\/p>\n

It’s a similar story at every workshop. Seeing the excitement in people’s faces, hearing their gratitude, and watching women dancing and singing around the village while proudly displaying their new inputs has made this so much more rewarding than the typical technology office job. The daily office life, with stand up meetings and talks of new platform features, covers something far more special: a company dedicated to making a difference that has integrated the Ghanaian farmers into its very foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming into the office Monday mornings, sitting down to the team meetings, and typing up case study drafts at Farmerline headquarters, it can be easy to forget that what we are doing isn’t normal. What Farmerline as a whole is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1171,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/blampegsbf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}