Young Innovator Uses Technology To Connect Farmers And Consumers
A student-led technology project is aiming to connect local farmers more directly with consumers and businesses.
Venda TT, created by 16-year-old Malachi Senhouse, combines an online marketplace with farm management tools designed to support local agriculture.
Malachi says his platform is designed to allow farmers to list produce directly, while customers and businesses can see what is available and who is producing it.
The idea was driven in part by the country’s reliance on imported food.
“I was saying, you know, we spend about $7.3 billion a year on food imports, and CARICOM spends about US$5 billion on food imports on food that we can grow right here in the Caribbean and our nation. And we don’t really export much food at all, you know.”
The system has two sides: Venda TT is the marketplace where customers can view produce and farm profiles and Agro TT is the farmer-facing platform, which Malachi says would help farmers manage their farms, check the weather, use artificial intelligence-driven data insights, and list produce for sale.
Speaking on T&T Today, Malachi Senhouse explained how the system would work for farmers and customers.
“So farmers, well, not necessarily vendors, but mainly more for farmers. They have vendors’ counterparts, Agro-TT. It’s basically a farm management system for them. And they’re able to manage their farm, check the weather, find certain data insights which are driven by artificial intelligence to help them manage their farm better.”
Beyond the technology itself, Malachi says the app was designed with farmers’ working conditions in mind. He says it needed to be simple, low-cost and able to run on the kinds of phones many people already use. The aim, he says, is to make the platform useful in the field, not only on paper.
“I made the app extremely simple to use. So I said, you know, they may not have as much time, they may not have the best devices to use. So of course I said, what what can I do? So it’s easily usable for the average Android phone, for example.”
Venda TT recently won the Secondary Schools category of Cariri’s Innovation Nation 2026 Power Up Competition. Since then, Malachi says the response has made him believe the idea could become a business sooner than he expected. He says interest from people in agriculture, including a business owner who wants to use the app, has reinforced his view that the need already exists.
“When is your business getting registered? That shows me that the demand is really there. It’s something that can be done. And you know, it’s happening sooner than I think.”
For Malachi, the project is not only about launching an app. He says it is part of a wider push for young people to bring new ideas into technology, agriculture and national development.
Venda TT is still at an early stage, but its creator says the goal is clear: to make it easier for local food to reach local buyers and to show that young innovators can play a role in solving practical problems.
