Mercon’s LIFT App: A One-of-a-kind tool

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When Jairo Herrera first started at Mercon as a Field Technician in Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua, he was introduced to the LIFT App. Like all new things, he struggled at first but soon enough, the application became Jairo’s right hand at work.

The LIFT app is an in-house mobile application developed over 4 years ago as a tool for our Field Technicians which allows them to register all the information about our LIFT producers and their farms. From their personal data to yield productions and recommendations, there is nothing that the app can’t register!

A few years back, Jairo and the rest of the agronomists had the tedious task of gathering and documenting manually all the information needed for producers’ training. “We had to register all the data on paper and send it to another team and this would take some time, and there was a lot of room for errors and delays. That all changed when we included this process in the app. Now I can gather all the information and send it in real-time without any delays. I was amazed when we made the switch, it completely changed the way we work,” says Jairo.

Technology and its ability to provide information in a timely manner help us make agile decisions and make projections based on accurate information. “This app has completely changed the way we keep track, analyze and even interpret our data,” says Karen Escorcia, Head of Monitoring and Evaluation in Nicaragua.

Monitoring and evaluation are essential aspects of the growth and development of the LIFT program and its application. “Monitoring allows us to see the progress of the program. My work serves to see points of improvement”, says Karen.

 “There’s always a learning curve with technology, but it’s very user-friendly and this helps me to see how we can continue improving. I’m constantly thinking about what we can do to make it even more efficient and ultimately provide a better service to producers because they can see the value of having all their information in one place, it makes them proud to see their historical data and all the progress they’ve made so far,” says Jairo.

Jairo is proud to work every day with continuous improvement in mind. The LIFT app has allowed Jairo to view his work in a different light and the contributions towards building a better coffee world.