Eradicating poverty among small holder farmers in Nigeria.

Providing access to farming equipment, training, improved seedlings, finance, and market to smallholder farmers on franchise bases to enable them to produce more and improve their earnings.

Uncle J. Foods provide access to farming equipment, training, improved seedlings, small finance, and other services to smallholder farmers in Nigeria on a franchise basis to help them produce more, and then we link them to the market so as reduce their post-harvest losses to the barest minimum. In this way, they are able to improve their earning, send their children to school, provide good medical services to their families, provide good nutrition, shelter, etc, without so much stress. Nigerian smallholder farmers cannot produce enough to take themselves out of poverty because of our traditional system of farming which entails using traditional equipment (Hoes and Cutlasses) to farm. So they remain poor and because of their poverty, they cannot buy modern farm equipment, they do not have access to fund, they use unimproved seedlings, and do not have access to market nor preservation methods and thus run very high post-harvest losses. All these force them deeper into poverty. We buy or rent the equipment and all the agricultural services and we let them have access to these on a franchise basis so as to help them produce more with less stress, boost their earnings, and improve on their poverty rating.

The problem we are solving is poverty among smallholder farmers in Nigeria and hunger among the people. According to the FAO, 70% of the Nigerians population of over 200 million are smallholder farmers, 80 million of them are poor and cannot afford their own modern agricultural services. Because of this, they use semi crude implements-(hoes and machetes) for their farming. They also do not have access to improved seedlings so they use traditional seedlings which yield very poorly. They do not have access to finance and markets, so they run high post-harvest losses. With these, their productions are very poor and their earning is very small while their stress is very high. With all these, they cannot provide decent food for their families; they cannot provide shelter nor good medical care. They cannot send their children to school. Instead, most use their children for street hawking or rent them out for street hawking with its attendant risks and social vices. The girl children are often raped and turned into young prostitutes or even murdered in ritual killings. Most of the boys turn to armed robbers, kidnappers, scammers, bandits, and easy recruits to terrorists. The consequences include that the communities are no longer safe. Bandits and terrorist activities have overwhelmed the capacity of our security agents. Even the security agents themselves are not safe. Social activities are almost grounded to zero. Goods have become very scares and the cost of products is getting out of the reach of most.

Our solution serves the poor underserved smallholder farmers,  There are over 80 million of them in Nigeria. A lot of these are women and youths most of them produce vegetables, rice, and maize. At their present capacity and system of production and other handicaps, they farm one hectare of land at most in a year which yields about 2.5 tons of vegetables. Sold at 200 Naira per kilogram, they earn about 500,000  Naira or about 1,100 USD in a year. On our intervention with tractors, improved seedling, and finance, the yield per hectare improve to 5.3 tons per hectare and they can farm between 2-10 hectares of land with little stress. Assuming a farmer cultivates 5 hectares of land with our system and produces 5.3 tons per hectare, it amounts to 26.5 tons a year which is sold at the same 200 Naira per kg, giving 5,300,000 Nigerian Naira or 11,778 USD as against their previous 500,000 Nigerian Naira or 1,100. With their improved earning, they have been able to send their children to school, provide shelter and other necessities for their families. They can buy their farming equipment in long run and get out of poverty. And with the increase of food from several smallholder farmers, food will become available and affordable to all and more jobs can be created in agriculture and the food supply chain.

My father owns a food processing company. His suppliers are smallholder farmers. I discovered that some of the children of these people don't go to school, and I asked their parents why. All the answers were inadequate earning. In 2018, I talked to two hundred farmers to see what their problems were and how we can help them out. This brought us to what I called TTSFM. That is (technology, training, seed, finance, and market.)

I  asked my father to give me a small loan to rent a tractor, get improved seedlings and provide fertilizer to three farmers supplying him and I had an agreement with them that my father would buy every product they produced. That year, their production grew several folds. I added more farmers and talked to grocery shops who took their products and I also talked to other companies using agro-products. Today I have 510 happy farmers. I plan to grow the group to 7 000 by 2023 if I get more finances.

My service has been tested among smallholder farmers in my immediate community and it is working well. Actually, we started with three farmers in our immediate community and had positive results. Their production increased from 2.5 tons per hectare a year to 26.3 tons per 5 hectares a year and their earnings increased from 1,100 USD  per farmer to 11, 780 USD per farmer. We are scaling to other communities and today we have 510 farmers in our group and a long list of others applying to join us. You see, the population of smallholder farmers in Nigeria is very high and the poverty rate is also very high and everyone is trying to see a ray of light in the dark tunnel. So they tend to flood to anywhere they see a glimpse of hope. Now that the number of farmers and off-takers is growing, We have formed the farmers into a registered cooperative to enable them to come together and help themselves in other ways like pooled farming, cooperative weeding and harvesting, joint insurance, and so on.

Our solution is powered and driven by farm machinery, digital or smart farming technology, and fintech products. 

We buy or rent farm machinery and let the farmers access them to make their farming easier and increase their production.

We collect information from our farmers digitally, analyze and store them digitally both in our database and our farmers' phones in case. We also store the contacts of our farmers and processors and buyers of our farmers' products and these also are stored electronically on our database and the farmers' phones. So the farmers can have access to the buyers without necessarily recoursing to us.

we also manage the individual farmer's small loans and repayment stored in our database and their individual phones so that they also can see for themselves how they are performing in their input, their output, and their profits and loan repayment.

Then we use tractors and tillers to prepare their land, supply improved seedlings,  and use our planters to plant them. During weeding, we use robotic weeders and often we harvest with combined harvesters.

At the moment, we directly serve 510 smallholder farmers and 17 processors.

In 2022, we intend to increase the number of smallholder farmers to increase them to over 7,000, depending on funds, and in 2023 we plan to reach the over 5000 mark. Our target is ten million smallholder farmers in ten years.

By 2022, we intend to increase the number of our farmers to over 7000, which will cultivate a minimum of 35,000 hectares of land and produce a minimum of 185,500 tons of food and generate a minimum of 37.1 billion Naira for the farmers. We make a revenue of 5000 Naira per every hectare cultivated so we expect to make 175, million Naira. We also plan to increase the number of off-takers to 50 and we will set up our first co-operative shop where our processors and farmers products and other small entrepreneurs can be sold at a discount price. (Our long-term plan anyway is to have co-operative shops run on franchise bases in every locality in Nigeria.) We will achieve our 2022 targeted impact by buying five tractors, two robot weeding machines, two harvesters, two trucks to transport vegetables to the factory and from the factory to the market, and setting up a vegetable processing line. To ensure that all products are taken, we will increase off-takers to fifty to avoid post-harvest losses. We will also start developing plans for our first 5 wholesale/retail co-operative shops.

First, our goals include no poverty, Zero hunger, Decent work, and economic growth, and reduced inequalities. We measure our impact on the number of smallholder farmers who benefit and get out of poverty through our effort. For instance, we started with 3 farmers, grew it to 50, and today we have 510. Our goal is to impact ten million small-holder farmers in 10 years.

We also measure the impact of our zero hunger by the amount of extra food our small-holder farmers put in the market. We have changed their productivity from one hectare to an average of 5 hectares and output from 2.5 per hectare to 5.3. This has also impacted on prices of foods and made it affordable to the majority. Now with technology, our farmers have less stress and make good income. Women and handicapped people could not dig the ground with their muscles to produce enough food for themselves but with our technology they can just show the land, machines will do all the work for them so all they do is supervision. And they do not only produce for themselves but also for others.

1. The barriers holding us down include finance. We started with small funds provided by my father and leverage services and equipment from other organizations, such as the Agricultural Services and training center (ASTC) which is already on the ground but due to the high number of needy farmers, Our need for their services and equipment are not always met and we need finance to buy our own equipment to be able to truly expand our and accomplish our goals next year. My father's legal adviser has been providing us free legal services and has promised to continue. 

There is also this cultural barrier that does not allow women to own land. We get across this by reaching an agreement with the local chiefs, ward heads, and local government chairmen to lease land to them. We have been very successful in this area since these people a very happy to rent the land.

We don't have market barriers. Though we have plans to open co-operative stores in most cities which will the products of our farmers and those of other small entrepreneurs at discounted prices. Discounted prices is possible because when we eliminate middlemen, prices will drop.

We have zeal and dedication. And to make sure we succeed, We are leveraging advises and helps from professional accountants, auditors, and seasoned businessmen. Our advisory team is headed by my father who is the chairman and CEO of his own company. He holds a master's degree in business administration and is running a successful company. Our legal advisor holds an LLB in law and works with my father's company. Our accountant Has HND in accounting and the data manager holds a degree in data sciences. All these people are providing us with free services on a part-time basis and have kindly promised to continue. We also leverage technical staff and training staff from ASTC. All these people have long experience and very strong backgrounds in their different organizations. I am the youngest among all but everyone is making sure I succeed by providing me with all the needed help and support.

We partner with ASTC who provides us with training and equipment. We also have swiss Nigerian Foods Limited, Spectra Holding limited, Guarantee trust Limited, Dorisan Farms, and foods processing, etc. These organizations buy our farmers' produce for processing and marketing.

Then we have the cooperative which is the umbrella body of our smallholder farmers. We intend to start cooperative stores in which our farmers' and processors' products, as well as those of other young entrepreneurs and producers, will be sold at discount prices. These shops we plan to plant in every localities and neighborhood and we know it will provide a very wide range of market for our products and will go a long way to provide succor to the ordinary people who may not have the means to go to the cities for their needs.

We know that uneducated or unenlightening girls can not contribute much to help save themselves, how much more the world. The way our systems are going, they end up being prostitutes, professional housewives, petty traders, etc, who have narrow thinking ability to contribute meaningfully in the modern technology-driven world.  This is why we are empowering their parents to empower the girls with education so as to give them opportunities to develop themselves mentally to be and strong too and find and exploit their in-built talents. The African girl child needs education empowerment to be able to free herself and find her voice to express herself and not this exploitative child marriage, street hawking, and prostitution or new this new one they sex slave. These breeds can not contribute any meaningful thing to help themselves, how much more to help the world. 

Farming with traditional tools is highly energy-tasking and beyond the capacity of girls and women. So largely, women are excluded from the farming business and the girls are mainly used for street hawking,  prostitution, or early marriage, etc. The women end up as professional housewives and doing menial jobs which do not earn them enough to meet essential family needs. And when the man dies, often young, the whole family is in trouble and the most hit are the girls who are married out very young or rented out, etc to be able to reduce the burden of feeding the children by their mother.

My father was a victim. He lost his father before he was ten and he has told us the story of hardship he and his siblings had to face and how all the girls fared badly without any reasonable opportunities. 

So we have decided to innovate a small-holder farming system in a way that makes farming less stressful, more profitable, and capable of accommodating women and girls and even handicapped people and giving all financial and economic opportunities. 

A woman does not need to go to the farm and dig all day long under the harsh sun and produce food not even enough for her family how much more to sell. With a little amount of money, she can use our services on the franchise so that her land or rented land can be cultivated for her, weeded, harvested for her and she has processors begging to buy. All she needs to do is simply supervise the work and make her money to look after her family. Even if she has no money, we still have a way of accommodating the extreme poor in a pooled farming system where three to five people combine to buy our franchise and so long as they are in the co-operative and share the proceed, or processors bear the cost of the farming and still buy her crops at market prices. The pooled farming system is one in which we ask the local chiefs to give us land for the benefit of their poor people. The land is cultivated for three to five people who collect loans from the cooperative to farm and take care of it. They are attached to a processor who buys their crops from the cooperative and the cooperative pays the owners of the farm after deducting their cost. This system has helped people, mostly women, and girls who otherwise could have earned nothing.