VictualMart

VictualMart bridges the gap between farmers and buyers, it's a digital agricultural market that gives smallholder-farmers an opportunity to connect easily with buyers in order to sell their Victuals.

VictualMart is a mobile application that bridges the gap between farmers and buyers, it is a digital agricultural market that gives smallholder farmers an opportunity to connect more easily with buyers in order to sell their farm produce efficiently as well as give buyers the opportunity to purchase victuals at a subsidized rate. It simplifies the tedious process of purchasing victuals by bringing both parties together on a single platform. With a simple user interface and dual functionality, the application serves both farmers and purchasers depending on the role the user logs in with. The application's layout is quite descriptive and this allows for easy posting, searching, categorization and payment.

With our solution, Farmers can make money when selling, consumers save money and time when buying, Nigerian youth gets employed by working for us as VictualMart agent.

• Wastage of perishable food,
• Inadequate access to market after harvest,
• increase in the price of foodstuff,
• hunger and unavailability of food are issues most farmers and consumers face day in and day out

With Nigeria depending on food import for a tenth of its food needs, border closures and restrictions on movement during the spring and summer months have also affected the availability of food in the market. Farmers have been left to deal with the reality of post-harvest losses.

Here, COVID-19 was known as the hunger virus as food has become inaccessible. In my community, a lot of people died more of hunger than of the virus.

The handwriting of imminent food shortage in Nigeria had been on the wall for many years, long before concerned global organizations sounded the warning. The combined effects of armed conflicts, COVID-19 pandemic, and climate change have been ascertained as factors that would inevitably drag down agricultural output. It is therefore not surprising that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Representative in Nigeria, Fred Kafeero formally raised the alarm the other day, pointing out that an estimated 9.2 million Nigerians from 16 states and the Federal Capital Territory face food insecurity. Source - https://guardian.ng/opinion/in...

Food is the most purchased basic commodity and any impact made in the food market will better the lives of the general public.

Farmers

• Transportation of farm inputs from the farm gate to the market (i.e. overcoming the isolation of smallholder farmers).
• Provide a good storage facility.
• Creating a web of farmers (Having a database of farmers).
• Connect farmers to potential buyers at a fair price.
• Teaching farmers the farm management practices that will let them double or even triple their yields.
• Making quick returns & profits.

Customers

• Easy access to victuals at a subsidized rate.
• Reduction of hunger and poverty by lowering food prices and accessibility.
• Connect buyers (individuals, hotels, or fast foods) to farmers.
• Early deliveries.

Planet:

• Sourcing for organic and local food to sell to consumers in other to reduce carbon footprint. This method reduces “Food Mile” because the distance food travels from production to the customers makes up a small percentage of its overall carbon footprint.
• Campaigning on the need for the customers to eat a meat-free meal in other to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emission such as methane, nitrous oxide emitted by livestock.

VictualMart is founded by innovative young girls from Cross River State Nigeria. We saw the need to tackle poverty and hunger through the lens of Agriculture. We experienced the problem by looking at the problem We were facing in our own community which includes wastage of perishable food, inadequate access to the market after harvest, low crop yield, hunger, and poverty, understood the problem by understanding how agriculture and rural development can create jobs and livelihood for smallholder farmers and the landless while producing raw materials for the urban economy, we discovered the problem’s weakness and decided to solve it by creating a mobile application VictualMart which connects smallholder farmers to potential buyers. We believe that enabling smallholder farmers to grow more food to sell to consumers at a fair price would better the lives of the poor people in Nigeria.

We have done research with potential users, volunteered for rural farmers to understand the problem, and engaged potential users in the design and development of our solution. This move helped us to have a better user experience and got positive feedbacks from users during our testing phase

Nigeria spent $2B(nairametric.com) in 2021 to import some basic farm produce. Something isn’t right when half of the country’s labor market produces food and yet the country still buys its food.

So, what’s going wrong? Why aren’t Nigeria’s smallholders tapping into that $2B Market?

The problem stems from the fact that agricultural markets, like banks, exist on a formal plane, whereas smallholders exist on an informal one. Farmers and markets cannot communicate effectively. Smallholders don’t know what the market will pay. They can’t grow crops according to the market’s specifications because they don’t know the specifications. They have no way to learn the farm-management practices that would let them double or even triple their yields. Instead, they grow mostly what they can eat or trade locally, the way they’ve always grown it, thereby remaining in abject poverty. Many Nigerian’s smallholder farmers live far from cities and towns and are often poorly served by roads. Markets that provide inputs or purchase outputs may be many kilometers away and essentially inaccessible.

There's been an increase in poverty, hunger, and death recently due to the inaccessibility of food. We understand the importance of relieving consumers of unnecessary extra costs spent to purchase healthy food and also, halving some of the challenges smallholder farmers face.

We are in the pilot stage of our product because we have

• Built a network of farmers in Akpabuyo and Yala community in Cross River State and we are currently testing our products in these two communities.
• helped farmers market their farm produce and get buyers within their location (similar to the principle of uber)
• A database of 50 farmers and the agricultural produce they sell
• Started with the top 5 agricultural products that we researched that marketable online In our community (Rice, Beans, Garri, Oil Palm, and Yam)
• Reduce wastage of five (5) agricultural farm produce
• Increase profitability in the lives of the about twenty (20) smallholder farmers
• Reduce Hunger and poverty and we made food readily available and at a cheaper rate for over 200 customers of our product.

VictualMart is a digital agricultural market that gives smallholder farmers an opportunity to connect more easily with buyers in order to sell their farm produce efficiently as well as give buyers the opportunity to purchase victuals at a subsidized rate. It simplifies the tedious process of purchasing victuals by bringing both parties together on a single platform. With a simple user interface and dual functionality, the app serves both farmers and purchasers depending on the role the user logs in with. The application’s layout is quite descriptive and this allows for easy posting, searching, categorization and payment.

After the mobile app is downloaded and installed from playstore, users can start leveraging its full functionality by first signing up and then login, after purchase the client’s bill is calculated after each transaction, with the amount and transaction ID stored online. During the final checkout system, customers can pay through the bank or by online transfer. Notification of a request for SHOPPING AND PAYMENT PROCESS comes on through the admin side of our application, watched using the smart device and the laptop during working hours of 8:00 am to 5: 00 pm. Farmers are immediately notified and connected to a ready buyer in their region to sell his/her product. The request is stored in a virtual order tray and forwarded to the Van driver or VictualMart agent. The driver/agent picks up the victuals and delivers them to the appropriate billing and shipping address. 

Current Number:

Currently, our solution is serving 20 farmers that are heavily involved in the cultivation and harvesting, and sales of the agricultural produce. We have been able to record a total of 174 sales. We have 5 VictualMart agent that works closely with the Chief Agricultural officer and farmers to ensure that agricultural produce Is readily available.

The number we will be serving in the next year:

We hope to have over 1,500 active customers that will buy Victuals at a subsidized rate, recruit over 200 local farmers to grow more food and sell while making profits, and empower 50 local talents to serve as VictualMart agents while in turn making money by our 1st year in business.

By the end of next year, we hope to:

• Impact at least 200 farmers to grow more food and sell while making profits
• Empower young girls and women to see the need to venture into the Agricultural market
• Employ at least 50 local talents to serve as VictualMart agents and other key areas.
• Reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emission caused by livestock
• Bridge the digital divide amongst farmers and create inclusion.
• Introduce Hydroponic farming as a way of helping the landless.

SDG 2- ZERO HUNGER 

(We aim to End Hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable Agriculture)

By the end of 3 years in business, we hope to achieve the following:

Target 1: Reduce hunger, ensure access by all people, in particular, the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food all year round.

Indicators

• Prevalence of undernourishment
• Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in our community.

Target 2: Double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists, and fishers, including through secure and equal access to markets, land, other productive resources, and inputs, knowledge, financial services, and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment

Indicators

• The volume of production per labor unit by classes of farming
• The average income of small-scale food producers, by sex and indigenous status

Target 3: Ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding, and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality

Indicators

Increase the proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture

Target 4: Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility

Indicators

Indicator of food price anomalies

Poor/Bad Roads: Many Nigerian’s smallholder farmers live far from cities and towns and are often poorly served by roads. Markets that provide inputs or purchase outputs may be many kilometers away and essentially inaccessible.

Language Barrier: Here, a lot of people do not understand how to speak even Nigerian Pidgin English, in this case, we need to talk to community chiefs and youths to convey our message to the farmers.

Inappropriate way of storing perishable goods: Government policies and regulatory bodies / Regulatory Barriers – Government may hinder

Financial Aid (Cash flow issue) – Lack of funding and available resources may lead to improper planning and management of VictualMart for the next year.

Cultural Barrier: It is typically more difficult to do business in a foreign community than in one’s home community due to cultural barriers. So, expanding to other communities may be difficult and require a lot of resources and manpower.

Janet Odey – (Co-Founder -VictualMart)- She is a web developer and a passionate farmer with over 4 years of experience. She has worked and volunteered for various bodies and organizations including Technovation Girls, Enactus Nigeria, iKapture and more.

Henrietta Nsa – (Co-Founder -VictualMart) – She is a UI/UX engineer with over 2 years of experience. She designed our mobile app interfaces to be more user-friendly. She has volunteered for many impacts driven projects like Enactus Nigeria, Technovation Girls and

Michael Odey – he is an agricultural officer with experience in the sales and cultivation of agricultural farm produce

Felix Archibong – He is an android developer with over 5 years of experience building apps for his clients.

Godwin Onah – Community Leader – He is a passionate farmer and a community leader with over 5 years of experience. He helps us connect with the local farmers and chieves in order for us to host the town hall meeting for smallholder farmers and VictualMart agents.

We do not have any official partners yet. However, we have partnered and worked closely with community leaders and chiefs to penetrate their farmers in Akpabuyo and Yala communities.

We are trying to partner with two boarding schools and 3 restaurants to serve as their point of contact for the delivery of Victuals.

We have secured a partnership with other rural farmers to be their first point of contact after the delivery of this agricultural farm produce.

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FACTS

If we’re going to end hunger in our lifetimes, we need to empower women. Women make up to half of the agricultural labor force in many developing countries, but barriers to credit, inputs, and extension services, as well as land ownership and rights, limit their production. The labor burden of rural women exceeds that of men and includes a higher proportion of unpaid household responsibilities related to preparing food and collecting fuel and water. The contribution of women to agricultural and food production is clearly significant.

If women had equal access to productive resources, they could increase their yields and feed more hungry people in the world. And women are more likely to reinvest their income back into their families to improve education, nutrition, and health. When women flourish, families and communities do too.

SOLUTION:

We are qualified for and we will like to be considered for the Pozen Social Innovation Prize because of our continuous goal to empower and equip women and girls with the skills, and tools to better their lives through agriculture.

At VictualMart, we advocate for gender equality in agriculture we are working continuously to provide equal opportunities and resources to both men and women. We plan to connect farmers to available and important resources like land, credit, participation in decision-making bodies/organizations, and capacity building through training and extension services.

Our Team will use The Pozen Social Innovation Prize to advance our solution through the empowerment of young women and girls in other to see the need to venture into agriculture. Agriculture can be a vital source of economic and social empowerment for women. We hope to educate and empower more women to own their own farms, have access to new technologies, control their own incomes, and be able to feed their families independently, this single act will help women have the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty.

Women have an incredible potential for transforming agriculture. we will empower women in agriculture using the “Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index” (WEAI) as an indicator to measure our impact.

The WEAI measures the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector in an effort to identify ways to overcome those obstacles and constraints. The index aims to increase the understanding of the connection between women's empowerment, food security, and agricultural growth.

It measures the roles and extent of women’s engagement in the agriculture sector in five domains:

(1) Decisions about agricultural production,

(2) Access to and use of Technology and decision-making power over productive resources,

(3) Control over the use of income and productive resources,

(4) Social capital and leadership in the community

(5) Time use/ time poverty