The key to the company’s success is the use of technology to streamline the production chain. Ms. Abbas explains, “M-Farm has a contract with a local exporter, who buys the produce directly from the farmers” using their mobile devices. This gives farmers access to a reliable and guaranteed market that enjoys stable year-round prices while eliminating middlemen and lowering transaction costs.

According to Ms. Abbas, this system sets M-Farm apart from other organizations. Nevertheless, gaining the trust of the farmers was a difficult process. Many farmers were jaded by initiatives that had left them out to dry when they ran out of funds. “There’s an existing body [of projects] supporting the farmers today, and the next day they are no longer there. This makes farmers skeptical and lose trust” in projects similar to M-Farm.” So, the founders’ strategy is to “spend a lot of time and resources to make the farmers understand we are different.”

Access to endless amounts of cheap energy made us rich, and wrecked our climate, and it also made us the first people on earth who had no practical need of our neighbors… Our economy, unlike any that came before it, is designed to work without the input of your neighbors.

Borne on cheap oil, our food arrives as if by magic from a great distance (typically, two thousand miles)… We’ve evolved a neighborless lifestyle; on average an American eats half as many meals with family and friends as she did fifty years ago. On average, we have half as many close friends.

I’ve written extensively, in a book called Deep Economy, about the psychological implications of our hyperindividualism. In short, we’re less happy than we used to be, and no wonder — we are, after all, highly evolved social animals.