Farmlite
Farmlite is linking farm directly to retailers by automating drivers, storage and dark stores to access food at affordable prices
A social marketplace platform that enables retailers to select farm produce from dark stores, storage houses, and farm for delivery. Point from which farm produce is obtained is indicated to registered drivers, and through a recommendation engine (AI) , a suitable driver is selected. A retailer can then track product until arrival.
According to the world bank in 2018, about half of the 220 million population of Nigeria live below $2 and the curve is never going down.
This problem of food wastage has been due to lack of adoption of technology in the agricultural sector and traditional methods are still used in procurement of food.
This ccording to FAO caused about $12 billion dollars of food is wasted yearly after harvest. This has contributed to food inflation by 23% in only 2021., and will put more in the hungry zone.
my solution serve the local retailers in urban cities directly and the entire population indirectly. It also helps farmers reduce wastage , loss and risk in post harvest decision making.
Retailers find it hard to get farmers to buy from, and they spend more than 150% of initial cost to get elsewhere (mostly merchants). Farmers on the other hand can barely have access to the retail market, hence they sell cheap to sell more for fear of wastage.
Farmlite can now provide real time access data of farm produce from a farmer and retailers can get it without hassle and zero risk, then automate drivers for instant delivery. Further reducing time and cost of procurements.
This will increase digital inclusion of both parties, the informal sector, increasing standard of living and create more jobs for drivers and dark store owners, more profit and access to good quality food at affordable prices.
Farmers and middlemen in the agro supply chain were interviewed, we got to talk with retailers as well from different areas within the state, compare our research with already available data.
Drivers details, verification documents and identification card will be processed for compliance.
We also got to realize how informal the sector is with very low level of literacy, hence we are incurring more cost on the sales team for support until total disruption takes place.
- Improving financial and economic opportunities for all (Economic Prosperity)
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model
we have made intensive market research but yet to have a fixed business model yet. While our current model is believed to allow us expand quickly and increase efficiency with saved cost, we haven't built an MVP for it. Personal funds been raised were spent on testing.
- A new use of an existing technology (e.g. application to a new problem or in a new location)
our solution makes use of data analytics and AI to determine farm produce distribution to various store and dark houses to meet demand, and to predict demand in the future to enable planning in other areas such as production( pre harvesting stage), to procure supply. Trucks are also tracked as well as sensors, connected to our backend and app, for stable condition of transported produce and reliability.
- Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
- Big Data
- GIS and Geospatial Technology
- Internet of Things
- Software and Mobile Applications
- Nigeria
our solution is yet to be launched. However operation is expected to start by February 28. We plan to serve 5000 local retailers and 10000 direct consumers by next year.
the market we look to disrupt is mainly informal with 85% mobile penetration but less than 5% internet subscribers, with about 85% women. Hence, we plan to help them adopt our technology through our sales team by educating and bridge information gap, increase digital inclusion, create new job opportunities, less risk with more profit.
Our pivot areas for our customers include three states, Lagos, Niger and Kaduna.
rate of adoption of digital technology by local retailers to give room for innovation, industrialization and technology.
Rate of inclination of food price (preferably below $2 for more staple food, about 56% of the population spend below $2) a day.
Number of monthly subscribers to increase sustainability.
Low digital adoption of our targeted users,
We are also very low on budget and would need financial support.
the team includes intelligent individuals like saheed adewumi who is a software engineer and builds tech solution of companies under the name emerald technology , a freelance and talent scouting company which he founded, saadiq, who is an IT expert but wanted to solve problems in agriculture supply chain, hence went into operations with middlemen to discover problems himself rather than been told. He's got about 4+ years of experience in agro supply and logistics, Nafesah lawal is an agricultural entrepreneur, who founded seedlings hub, a hub that provide well nurtured seedlings for farmers at affordable rate, and lastly, me, business and software developer, worked in different space with 3+ years of experience in product design and development such as swiftbook, a health management app for health institute.
We came together as a result of complaint by inhabitants and students about the cost of food, and we thought we should start this tasking but life changing solution
none yet
- No
- Yes
about 75% of women are in the agricultural sector especially the retail, digital inclusion and education on using our technology will help improve their standards of living and sustainability. Our work ethics encourage girls to work with us in improving technology for agriculture.