AgriGO Apps

The smallholder farmers in Africa has the challenge to access the agronomist who can provide necessary advisory services about inputs applications, such as pesticides, fertilizers,..this limit productivity per farm and therefore the farmer remain poor. Also a farmer has no necessary tool to monitor cost of production, therefore at the end of the day, pricing become an issue.

My solution leverage to the mobile penetration, and through USSD technology, which is basically SMS interaction a farmer is able to keep record of the farming activities and applied costs, which also trigger personalized advisory content on best practices, with an understanding of investment done. 

The solution is scalable through existing technology infrastructure and also powering traditional agronomists who use our android version to create farmer group, and support them remotely while they are making money themselves on commission basis of 1$ monthly subscription of a farmer.

In Rwanda, more than 80% of the population work in agriculture and above 75% are smallholder farmers who have small size farm of less than 1 hectare. Due to the limited number of agronomists, with a ratio of 1 agronomist against 15,000 smallholder farmers there is no possibility to support a farmer individually, in order to provide them with best practices and related advisory services. Therefore a shortage of productivity per farmer, up to 40% compare to the farmer who can access agronomist support.

In addition to the poor production of smallholder farmer, there is no negotiation poor at the end of season. The smallholder farmer can't track the cost of farming activities and at the end of the season he has no say in terms of setting market price, the reason middleman is the one cashing in a lot while a farmer has no idea if there was profit or a bad loss, which is another reason bank and insurances express no interest to support and invest in agriculture sector, in Rwanda bank invest less than 7% of their total portfolio in Agriculture yet agriculture contribute to the GDP more than 30%.

AgriGO platform is more of a content distribution channel of agricultural content in a very personalized way to the smallholder farmer with respect to the crop calendar, farm size and location of the farm, all accessible through  the use of basic phone.  

It is as a simple mobile application which accessible through USSD technology, it works as interactive SMS to allow farmer recording activities and cost associated while advisory and other best practices are timely provided through SMS push.  AgriGO doesn't depend on internet connection or the use of smartphone, which makes it a reliable solution for smallholder farmers who use feature phones.

My solution is targeting smallholder farmers in rural areas and who have mobile devices, irrespective to the crop value chain. The demography of our farmers with an age range of 18-45 years old. 

Basically, the issues i am solving i have experienced it from my family level, my parents are primary teachers who also involved in farming, they always struggle to have a value of the production from the farm and the pain-points issue include the fact that their farmers cooperative has no agronomist to support members, this give me deep understanding of the degree of the problem which is shared by many other farmers of community, and Rwanda market at large. 

Engagement with farmers in solution design and development include meeting with cooperatives members, doing survey with agronomists etc. 

AgriGO consider the fact that most of them use feature phone, can't afford internet connection and their need of best practices on inputs application and also provide them with ability to keep cost of production.  

AgriGO platform has two major value proposition which respond to different dimension of the smallholder farmer's problem. It address the issues of knowledge to improve yields while sustaining productivity of land and seas through the distribution  of a best practices with respect to the crop calendar in very personalized way.

The ability of the farmers to keep the records of their farming activities and applied cost, is a key parameter to generate the credit scoring which is bankable by different partners and serve as the basis for  access to inputs and financial inclusion services to address the problem of capital 

All people are 7.

Full time are 4

Part time are 3