In a bid to ensure that food production and security are improved in the country, Afrimash Company Limited, an indigenous agriculture ecommerce platform, has introduced a USSD technology and agent network system for farmers to have access to farm inputs.
Speaking at the product launch in Lagos, the CEO and co-founder of Afrimash Company, Ayoade Ahmed Oyedotun said the new technology which was launched in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would improve the way farmers are engaged in the rural parts of the country.
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Explaining further, he said: “We are passionate about helping farmers gain easy access to them. What we did was to get agents in every community to serve these farmers and farming clusters, ask them what they need, help them place their orders on our platforms and get them delivered.’’
On his part, programmes manager, Afrimash Company Limited, Collins Okeke, said initially they had the challenge of lack of trust among the farmers adding, “farmers were used to the ‘cash and carry’ model of transactions, but we are disrupting that and changing the narrative. In surmounting this issue, what gave us an edge was the profile of the agents we worked with. We also collaborated with the, ministry of agriculture and worked with their agricultural extension officers. Using these methods has worked and has us helped scale.”
