Farmcrowdy has announced a move to officially consolidate its sister companies; Agricsquare and Farmgate Africa as part of a single entity, which is expected to create a bigger Farmcrowdy.
In a press briefing held recently, Farmcrowdy, which describes itself as Nigeria’s First Digital Agriculture Platform stated the need to integrate both its trading and production business operations into one umbrella known as Farmcrowdy. Farmgate Africa was initially set up in November 2018, with the aim of becoming a huge, independent agro commodity trading platform.
According to Onyeka Akumah, CEO of Farmcrowdy Group, the consolidation was intended for November 2019, however decided to make it happen this month towards consolidating all agricultural efforts into one, and deliver better value to the market.
Following this announcement, the business of FarmGate Africa will no longer exist as a single business entity but one integrated into Farmcrowdy. The combined companies will now be referred to as Farmcrowdy, and shortly after the announcement, all sponsorship options available from both platforms (Farmcrowdy and Farmgate Africa) will now reflect on the combined Farmcrowdy Platform. Agricsquare will however continue to be run as a product of Farmcrowdy – the largest community of Agriculture enthusiasts in the country with over 20,000 people engaging daily to discuss agriculture-related topics, the company said.
Kenneth Obiajulu, who was managing director of Farmgate Africa, will oversee the trading aspect of the new entity while Temitope Omotolani, chief operations officer for Farmcrowdy will continue to oversee the production side (Crop production, feedlot production, etc) of the company.
Obiajulu explaining the complimentary approach of both businesses, said that while challenges around farmer’s productivity and access to finance have been addressed through the access to finance model of Farmcrowdy, on the other hand, Farmgate sought to solve issues around market access which is a core challenge in Nigeria’s agriculture space.
According to him, Farmgate has been able to collapse the multiple layers of intermediaries that farmers go through before getting to superior market that will offer these farmers value for their products. “This results to both parties losing value for the products, hence we have bridged the gap between small scale farmers and processors through technology,” Obiajulu pointed out.
In livestock, Farmcrowdy has recorded partnerships with notable companies such as Best foods limited and Livestock247 which enhanced reach into local communities in Lagos and effective value creation.
“From our facility we process about 45 cows everyday increasing our control of meat distribution in the mainstream market, even to big restaurants where will supply about 35 percent of their daily demand for meat,” Obiajulu noted.
To this end, the consolidation between Farmcrowdy and Farmgate is geared towards bringing to a single table; productivity, reduction in harvest losses, access to finance and market access under a single umbrella to drive value and profitability.
The company also addressed what it described as “recent spurious claims made by a Twitter user against the company, which has since been proven to be false.” Farmcrowdy said it is making a bold statement that the business is as solid as ever with this announcement.
DAVID IBIDAPO
