To support the current diversification drive and mitigate the impact of oil price, Agroyields Africa Limited, Nigeria’s leading agric-tech organisation is helping smallholder farmers secure credit needed to increase production and boost productivity by acting as a link between the farmers and investors.
Agroyields through its online platform bring investors’ funds together with the aim of investing it in the primary production of the country’s agricultural sector to generate profits thereby impacting on farmers’ livelihood.
The investment by investors’ helps the smallholder farmers access the needed finance to expand their operations and move from subsistent to commercial farming.
“Through our platforms we are solving capital inefficiencies of smallholder farmers. We are solving issues around credit for the farmers that we are currently working with,” Deborah Adesua Ameli, chief operating officer, Agroyields Africa said during a recent Agritech seminar in Lagos.
“We provide farmers with inputs and technical support to guarantee investment returns of up to 24 percent for investors as well as profit for the farmers,” she said.
Over the years, lack of finance has remained one of the major factors bedevilling the country’s agricultural sector and this impediment has continued to prevent farmers from investing in basic inputs, such as quality seeds, fertilizers and small-scale irrigation facilities needed to raise productivity and generate sustainable income.
As a result, yields have failed to increase significantly, leading to pervasive hunger and poverty.
Similarly, with little or no commercial financing and other incentives available to entrepreneurs seeking to build businesses that could boost food production, agricultural production has continued to remain at a subsistence level.
To change all this for the Nigerian farmers Agroyields through its online platform is linking farmers to investors, who will invest in their activities to enable them boost productivity.
Similarly, to mitigate risks in farming and ensure that investors’ funds are safe, Agroyields ensures that all its farms are insured against risks beyond their control.
“To mitigate the risks we cannot control we ensure that all our farms are insured and Leadway Assurance is our insurer,” she said.
“We are constantly working directly with our farmers by monitoring of their activities. We also providing them with training on good agricultural practices (GAP),” Ameli added.
She encourages interested investors who are willing to invest to visit Agroyields website to make investment on any farm of their choice on the platform.
She noted that the organisation has continued to build trust among investors with persistency. “We believe that with persistent we would further have more investors on our platform and build trust among them,” she said.
Josephine Okojie
