FarmAid Solution

• According to research, Farmers in Nigeria face a lot of challenges but key out of them are access to quality information, market linkages and access to finance capped with gaps in the agriculture extension system that has affected their productivity and income.
• With our FarmAid platform, we are proposing a digital agricultural extension and advisory service that delivers information on Good Agricultural Practices as it relates to farming life cycle, business advisory, market linkages, weather advisory, crop specific calendars, livestock production and animal health to small holder farmers as well as create access for different market actors in their respective value chains.

• The use of technology in providing agricultural extension services to disadvantaged smallholder farmers is expected to bridge the inclusion gap, provide access to continuous and timely information on Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), and expected to improve yields and incomes for farmers both nationally and globally. 

Besides the limited access to inputs, farmers also lack access to the much needed agronomic information, which is known to contribute 52% of overall yield of their crops. The current ratio of farm extension agent to farmer is 1:5000 as against the recommended 1:800 according to FAO. The plight of the rural smallholder farmer is further worsened as his geographic location limits his interaction with the few available extension workers. Consequently, rural smallholder farmers remain underserved and underprivileged, lacking access to critical information and inputs required for their agricultural productivities.

The issue of lack of access to extension services and inputs is further exacerbated by conflicts, communal clashes and other interplaying factors. The already crippled extension services have become non-existent where over 2.4 million people have been internally displaced, a majority of whom are farmers who are on the paths of recovery.

Providing a more cost efficient and effective method of delivering agricultural extension services leveraging technology as an alternative to the traditional ‘training and visit (T & V)’ model can translate to increased productivity, increased yields, increased incomes and reduced poverty among smallholder farmers.

FarmAid is a solution that leverages web/mobile technologies to deliver Digital Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services (DAEAS) to last mile farmers including women and persons living with disabilities in hard to reach and post conflict areas in Nigeria. Beyond provision of agricultural extension and advisory services, this platform also connects the farmers to various market actors such as off-takers/aggregators, input suppliers, seed companies, agricultural research institutes. This solution uses Short Messaging services (SMS), a farmer call centre and a mobile application for animal health workers to engage and provide information on Good Agricultural Practices as it relates to farming life cycle, business advisory, market linkages, weather advisory services, livestock production and animal health to small holder farmers.

With the use of a basic feature phone, farmers regardless of their locations are able to access the much needed information required to improve their productivities.

By international standards, a farm that is less than 10 hectares is classified as small scale therefore the target population of our product are small holder farmers. These smallholder farmers include women and people living with disability who live on less than $2 per day in the hard to reach, last mile rural locations across Nigeria. These farmers produce below the average yield per hectare specific to their crop and have little or no access to markets and quality information such as Good Agronomic Practices, timely key information on weather and Business Advisory thereby affecting their yield and income.

We deploy a needs assessment form that enables us tailor our information to their needs and by incorporating our call centre we are engaging them as we develop our solution as the call centre serves as a feedback mechanism for the organization and our processes.

Our solution addresses their needs by pushing messages on good agronomic practices tailored to their specific value chains and animal reared while using the farmer call centre to record feedback based on the already – sent messages and make improvements to our messages. 

Farmers require farm inputs and farm services to enhance food production and their access to these has been a challenge. Some small-scale farmers have access but the quality of inputs they have access to is below par and impacts negatively on their productivity, hence the need to develop a platform/system that disseminates information on good agronomic practices and also connects farmers, agro-dealers, seed companies, agro-processors and farm service providers seamlessly at scale and within limited time due to seasonality of production. 

Few platforms exist that bridges the gap between farmers and the right information required for their productivities and increased incomes. Some of the competitors identified includes NGO and Government funded programmes such as the National Agricultural Extension and Liaison services (NAERLS), Farmers Market Information Kiosk (FMIK) and for profit technology companies such as Growsel, Alos Farms, Babban Gona and Viamo.

For the objectives of the platform to be achieved, the right communication channels to get the message across to the end-users will have to be utilized. An ideal channel would be an interactive one that allows the end-user request for tailored information and provides feedback to the platform.

A further analysis of our competitors revealed that traditional means of communication such as radio, television and print media are still being utilized to communicate with farmers and market actors. These media are limiting in their capacity as they do not provide real-time actionable information. Although most businesses combine the use of two or more channels, SMS remains the predominant means of reaching farmers in rural areas.

One area that was yet to be explored by all competitors is the use of interactive voice response (IVR) systems. This further helps to provide step-by-step guidance for the end-user or routes them to an appropriate expert if needed.

Another gap that was identified is livestock disease detection. Due to the remote locations of most farming settlements, the ability to quickly but accurately detect livestock diseases would go a long way to ensuring healthy livestock. 

The technology solution adopts pull and push system using Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Short Message Service (SMS), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Web and a physical Farmer Call Center as the final option to engage and provide solutions to farmer’s needs. The solution leverages the huge indices of radio use by farmers as an outreach tool to create awareness on Farm Aid Solution as well as on mobile phones (over 70% of farmers own one according to existing data) to engage with farmers including providing other ancillary services that can improve farmers yields as well as optimize the operations of the Ag-input companies for increase surplus.

Furthermore, the call centre is powered by a software that enables further interaction between the farmers and the agronomist. They call our toll – free line and receive quality information from our trained agronomist based on their request, complain or needs. With our animal disease diagnostic mobile App, the animal health worker simply inputs the symptom identified in the animal being diagnosed and a quick diagnosis is done giving feedback on the disease identified and the corresponding treatment

The technology is being implemented in India and Kenya. 

Reuter market light provides information on market prices, weather conditions, and tips on farming cycles via SMS to fee paying subscribers in India. 

In Kenya, there’s a KenCall’s Farmer helpline, a for-profit call centre staffed by agricultural experts that provides agricultural information, advice and support to smallholder farmers over the phone using voice and voice call back to farmers 

Link to Demo: https://mega.nz/#!rIIlFSLa!BhTMP5QEgimLFw6h-j9AjI5NJTIaZ7X8VsXHrI50Hvs

FarmAid is uniquely positioned to provide value to farmers as well as to market actors in the agricultural value chain. This is based on a theory of change that if Farm Innovation Nigeria leverages information technologies such as the web and mobile platforms to deliver high quality climate smart Good Agronomic Practices (GAPs) information to smallholder farmers as well as connect them to markets/off-takers of their produce, then this should remove the physical barriers to delivering agricultural extension and inspire positive behavioral changes in farmers which would ultimately translate to increased productivity, increased yields, increased incomes and reduced poverty among the beneficiary group respectively.

• Activities: Radio feedback programs, Community platform demos in target communities, Farmer onboarding to the platform, Platform Development and testing, Setup of call centre, Design and development of virtual GAP training curriculum and modules, Stakeholder mapping and signing of MOUs 
• Output; Improved access to information on crop and livestock production, Increased/direct access to farmers by market actors, Awareness of extension services amongst stakeholders, Increased farmer aggregation per value chain, Number of farmers seeking information via the call center, Increased farmers awareness of a platform to get updated information on crop and livestock production, Functional web application integrated with a call center
• Outcome: Market actors adopt technology to engage with farmers, Improved adoption of GAP among participating SHFs in target communities, Improved access to premium markets, Farm aid becomes mainstream Agriculture value chains information platform, increase in the efficiency of crop production resources, improved crop/livestock production knowledge of farmers, Reduced prevalence of animal diseases in target states, Increased rate of subscription to farm aid service offerings
• Impact: Increased farm production and yield for farm aid on-boarded farmers across supported value chains and livestock, Increased sustainable income for farm aid on-boarded farmers in target states

• Currently the platform serves over 20,000 farmers in Adamawa, Gombe, kaduna, kano and Jigawa states in Nigeria. So far, the feedback recorded from the call centre shows that 38% of the farmers have called to acknowledge improvement in their farming practices and this was achieved by sending information on Good agronomic practices and weather report.
• We expect at least 500,000 farmers across Nigeria in the next 12 months.
• In 5 years, we expect at least 40 million farmers across west Africa.

Our goal within one year is to scale significantly within Nigeria targeting at least 500,000 last mile farmers and within five years replicate the process across West Africa with over 15 million farmers on our platform. This will be achieved using existing mobile technologies used for on boarding of farmers, demo workshops and stakeholder engagement in target communities across Nigeria and West Africa.

• Financial Barriers
• Cultural Barriers
• Technical Barriers

Financial – In order to upscale across Nigeria and west Africa within west Africa, we need finance to achieve this feat.

Cultural Barriers – In order to achieve women inclusion especially in northern Nigerian, culture has been seen as a great barrier because culture puts a limit to female participation in certain agricultural activities.

Technical Barriers – Currently, we are unable to acquire VAS licence due to restrictions placed by the regulatory communications body in Nigeria 

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17 - Full time staff

Farm Innovation Nigeria have been a strong player in technology innovation for agriculture in Nigeria and have been conducting research on models to make information and advisory services accessible to small holder farmers across Nigeria.

Our team comprises of researchers, international development professionals, Monitoring, Evaluation & learning professional and full stack software engineers who have individually supported several projects that aim at improving the livelihood of small holder farmers.

This includes a Rockefeller foundation $2,500,000 -funded tomato value chain project targeting 45,000 small holder farmers in the Northern States of Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Jigawa and Katsina. The project sought to increase the income of smallholder tomato farmers in Nigeria by 2020 by reducing losses and increasing productivity.

Our diversity affords us different perspectives to our solutions and the varying impacts they create.  

We work with both private, public and government owned institutions to deliver efficient and cost effective services to farmers and other market actors in the agricultural value chains.

For instance, the North East Commodities Association - a regional farmer association for farmers in the North Eastern region of Nigeria with a membership over ten thousand farmers. Leveraging our platform, we were able to demonstrate value to the association in terms of cost of engaging onsite extension agents who probably are not trained agronomists and may not be available to provide response to risks and challenges faced by farmers in real time.

We are also working with Sosai, a private sector company leveraging renewable energy to mitigate crop post-harvest losses.

Other partners we work with includes the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI). We collaborate with them to access animal care content and advisory information for Community Animal Health Workers and Para-veterinary workers.

Others who have shown interest in the service due to the access it provides for optimal engagement with farmers include input suppliers, seed suppliers, off-takers, aggregators and even INGO’s such as ActionAid whom we are currently engaging with to integrate the service into their local agric programme delivery.

Our Business adopts the B2B and B2C Model

• B2B: Under the B2B we have the off -takers and agro dealers (seeds, Farm Inputs)
• B2C: farmers

 We offer the following services and Values to these people.

• Market Linkages: Off – takers have access to farmers in order to lift their produce
• Commodity pricing Information: This enables all market actors make decisions in relation to prices of their products.
• GAP messaging and Business advisory: messages on farming techniques, seed selection, planting, livestock management, harvesting and storage advice tailored to each crop or livestock
• Weather Advisory Services: Sending out of weather reports tailored to their locations helps farmers make better decisions about water usage on their farms.
• Veterinary services: an animal app that helps in the quick diagnosis of animal diseases. These services are provided through our data and non-data driven channels which include our mobile App for animal health workers to enable diagnosis of diseases, 

We are applying to solve to showcase FarmAid as a technology and service to improve the yield/productivity of farmers in Nigeria while improving their income. We also look forward to building our network with interested individuals and companies in order to secure funding to scale up our activities across Nigeria thereby increasing our farmer database and our contribution to the improvement of food security and practice of climate smart agriculture.

Farm Innovation Nigeria seeks partners that

• Provide investment and grants for expansion in Nigeria
• Promote women inclusion to improve access to agricultural services
• New technologies that help farmers generate more yields
• Provide support with Media and Brand exposure

Partnership with Olam to optimize engagement with more farmers in the shortest time through our solution.

Partnership with Syngenta Foundation to optimize engagement and improve access to farmers in Nigeria through our solution – Through their foundation, they look to improve yield and income for the smallholder farmers in Africa through provision of appropriate seeds, agriservices which includes provision of access to markets, good agronomic practices and technologies.