MIT Solve

Solution overview

Our Solution

Farmer 1st

Tagline

Farmer1st is an online market platform connecting farmers and off –takers DIRECTLY.

Pitch us on your solution

Farmer1st is an online market platform connecting farmers and buyers DIRECTLY

Located in Jos - Plateau State, 0ur number 1 goal is to create access to market for both small and large scale local farmers to sell more by aggregating their output and sourcing for off-takers within and outside Nigeria.

Problem

LACK OF RELIABLE INFORMATION AND ACCESS TO MARKET

POOR TRANSPORT AND STORAGE FACILITIES

LACK OF FINANCIAL SERVICES IN AGRICULTURAL SPACE

SOLUTION

PROVIDE A DATA BASE MARKET PLACE PLATFORM FOR FARMERS AND CONNECTING THEM TO MARKET

PROVIDING MOBILE MONEY BANKING PLATFORM FOR FARMERS

PROVIDING FARMERS ACCESS TO MARKET AND REDUCING FOOD WASTAGE

PROVIDING OFF TAKERS TO QUALITY PRODUCTS DIRECTLY FROM THE FARM

Film your elevator pitch

What is the problem you are solving?

PROBLEM

LACK OF RELIABLE INFORMATION AND ACCESS TO MARKET

POOR TRANSPORT AND STORAGE FACILITIES

LACK OF FINANCIAL SERVICES IN AGRICULTURAL SPACE

Who are you serving?

AGRICULTURE CONTRIBUTES 25% OF NIGERIA GDP

THERE ARE 25 MILLION FARMERS IN NIGERIA AND OVER 70% OF THEM DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO MARKET WHICH RESULT TO FOOD WASTAGE ESP FOR VEGETABLE CROPS LIKE TOMATOES, PEPPER ETC

ESTIMATE OF 45% OF NIGERIANS THAT ARE UNBANKED (APPROX 50 MILLION ADULTS) AND MOSTLY LOCATED IN RURAL AREAS.

OUR SOLUTION

Benefits for Farmers

Guaranteed Market & reduces loss.

Transparent pricing as seen on price boards.

Farm administration & farming advise.

FarmPay to receive payment instantly.

Resources and access to credit from our partners.

Benefits for Buyer/Off-taker

Access to quality & reliable produce

Affordable and fair price

Available to wholesales & corporate buyers

One stop shop – Grains, Vegs , Tuber, Livestock & Oil

Easy ordering via USSD| Online |Call Centre |Partner

Easy delivery and tracking

with our technology, we re helping farmers to avoid food wastage by connecting them with buyers and providing financial inclusion & empowerment to people in rural areas.

What is your solution?

OUR SOLUTION

Benefits for Farmers

Guaranteed Market & reduces loss.

Transparent pricing as seen on price boards.

Farm administration & farming advise.

FarmPay to receive payment instantly.

Resources and access to credit from our partners.

Benefits for Buyer/Off-taker

Access to quality & reliable produce

Affordable and fair price

Available to wholesales & corporate buyers

One stop shop – Grains, Vegs , Tuber, Livestock & Oil

Easy ordering via USSD| Online |Call Centre |Partner

Easy delivery and tracking

Select only the most relevant.

Support communities in designing and determining solutions around critical services
Create or advance equitable and inclusive economic growth

Where is your solution team headquartered?

Jos, Nigeria

Our solution's stage of development:

Scale

More about your solution

Select one of the below:

New business model or process

Describe what makes your solution innovative.

We are creating a digital platform for farmers and traders to interact with each other

First company to provide mobile banking platform for farmers and traders esp in rural areas to easily carry out financial transactions in the agricultural space

Describe the core technology that your solution utilizes.

Our technology is a software platform which make it easy to for farmers and traders to use our platform, book for products and organize logistics from the farms to its destined place.

Through USSD channel, farmer with their phone number can create farmer pay account on our mobile money platform. This is available to farmers, traders and people in rural areas. This is open to all mobile money operators.

Sign up farmers & traders as mobile money agents in rural areas using their mobile phones.

Our agents can fund their wallets using USSD channel powered by farmer pay.

People (farmers, traders etc) in rural areas can come to our agents to transfer, withdraw and pay utility bills at the pay points.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Big Data
Indigenous Knowledge
Social Networks

Why do you expect your solution to address the problem?

Benefits for Farmers

Guaranteed Market & reduces loss.

Transparent pricing as seen on price boards.

Farm administration & farming advise.

Farm Pay to receive payment instantly.

Resources and access to credit from our partners.

Benefits for Buyer/Off-taker

Access to quality & reliable produce

Affordable and fair price

Available to wholesales & corporate buyers

One stop shop – Grains, Vegs , Tuber, Livestock & Oil

Easy ordering via USSD| Online |Call Centre |Partner

Easy delivery and tracking

Select the key characteristics of the population your solution serves.

Elderly
Low-Income
Middle-Income
Persons with Disabilities

In which countries do you currently operate?

Benin
Ghana
Liberia
Nigeria

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

Benin
Ghana
Liberia
Nigeria

How many people are you currently serving with your solution? How many will you be serving in one year? How about in five years?

currently serving 10,000 farmers and traders but before the year runs out we will provide services to up to 200,000 farmers and traders in partnership with different farmers and traders cooperatives across Nigeria.

In the next 5 years we are looking at providing services to up to 10 million people in the agriculture space.

What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?

Our goals is to provide an easy access to market for farmers across West Africa & Africa in the next years to come and also provide a digital payment platform to unbanked areas.

What are the barriers that currently exist for you to accomplish your goals for the next year and for the next five years?

Mostly infrastructure issues like electricity and lack of good roads which our government have failed to accomplished but we always figure a way out.

How are you planning to overcome these barriers?

We have field agents in rural agents that we hire to sought out goods and we got them phones for easy communications.

For the issue of electricity, we are planning to work with some solar companies in partnership with local governments to provide solar energy esp solar farming to our farmers in rural areas.

If your solution has a website, provide a link here:

https://farmer1st.com/

About your team

Select an option below:

For-Profit

How many people work on your solution team?

we have 3 full time staffs and 15 contractors as field agents

For how many years have you been working on your solution?

2 years

Why are you and your team best-placed to deliver this solution?

Our Profile

Gyena Jeremiah Iliya
Co-Founder & CEO

Quantity Survey

|Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria|

7 YEARS

Idi Iliya

Co-Founder

Economics, M.B.A

|University of Maiduguri, Wales University|

11 YEARS

Sakmichit Miner

Chief Operations & Marketing Officer

Mass Communication

|University of Jos|

4 YEARS

Alex Shimei

Chief Technical Officer

Mechanical Engineering Technology

|Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi|

5 YEARS

|Software Development| |Web Design|

|3D Modelling| |Robotics|

With what organizations are you currently partnering, if any? How are you working with them?

1. All farmers association of Nigeria, Plateau chapter (AFAN):

Have access to 500,000 farmers in 17 local governments in Plateau State

2. FADAMA Cooperative farmers:

Have access to 50,000 farmers

3. Techno serve

Have access to 27,000 farmers across 5 states in Nigeria (Plateau, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Abuja)

4. Plateau traders & marketers association: Have access to the head of all the traders in different markets across plateau state.

5. Farm agro allied limited: Have access to more than 100,000 farmers in North eastern part of Nigeria ( Maidguari, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba and Adamawa)

Your business model & funding

Partnership potential