Farmz2U

We exist because despite Sub Saharan Africa having half of the world’s fertile land it spends $50 billion annually on food imports. And with 20% of the global population estimated to be in Africa by 2050, this intensifies an existing food security risk.

Through our work with farmers, we identified their key challenges and address these by providing data enabled insights that support farmers with tailored agricultural expertise while enabling easier stakeholder access through market integrations. This is delivered via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

Our solution is mobile accessible, and with 87% and 91% mobile penetration rates in Nigeria and Kenya (Jumia Mobile Report, 2019), our current areas of operation, we aim to replicate the impact achieved with mobile money solutions like M-Pesa in agriculture. Our 2025 user target is 1 million and with a community of 2500 farmers with a 20% month-on-month user growth, this is an achievable target.

Through prototype tests with Nigerian farmers, we identified the adoption of sub-optimal farming practices contributed to farmers’ challenges not limited to low produce yield, post-harvest waste and low farmer income. Farmers’ lacked the technical expertise to implement best farming practices like fertilizer microdosing and pest activity monitoring especially with external trends like climate change and depleting soil nutrients. Similarly, poor access to services like capital and insurance reduced the effectiveness of farming operations. Farmers require resources like; better technical expertise (e.g. agronomy for crops), market access (e.g. access to buyers and capital) and other resources that improve farming operations.

Local food production must be increased to fulfill the needs of a growing population and production methods must be sustainable to protect our ecosystem. Farmz2U addresses the challenges of food sustainability and security by supporting smallholder farmers, who represent 80% of farmers across Sub Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, there is gender inequality in resource access among farmers. While women supply 70% of agricultural labor, 50% of animal husbandry related activities and 60% of food processing they have access to only 20% of agricultural resources”. A digital solution like Farmz2U increases transparency and thus equality in resource access.

The core product is a software as a service (SaaS) platform built with microservice API architecture. This build ensures autonomy of the different features we provide, which is important as we support the farmer across the farming life-cycle, from pre-farming to post-harvest.

Data analytics and machine learning are key components of our SaaS platform with the aim of increasing the efficiency of each harvest cycle with a feedback loop. This means actions from a previous harvest are improved on using trend analysis. Using data like historic crop yields and soil composition, farmers’ decisions are supported to maximize yield and farmer income, and minimize costs. For instance, an instruction to apply 5-10 lbs of sulfur to restore soil alkalinity based on data feeds from soil sensors and NDVI (remote sensing data) will increase maize crop yield. Similarly, using open and proprietary sources, we increase market access. For instance, we are working with 3 banks to generate leads using Farmz2U's user profiles. Lack of data is a challenge for service providers like capital and insurance companies and we are building data points to address this. Market services are integrated on our SaaS platform via APIs thus ensuring a robust user experience. 

Our solution serves smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa, who represent 80% of all farmers in the region (NEPAD, 2012). Our current operations are based in Nigeria, and we are introducing our product to the Kenyan market through our partnership with the United Nations Development Program on the Cultiv@te project. 

Through tests with Nigerian farmers we identified the key challenges our target users (smallholder farmers) face including; post-harvest waste, suboptimal output yields, weather variability, low technical skills, and pest and disease outbreaks. Furthermore, we found a lack of gender equality
among farmers. Our objectives are aligned to the target indicators of UN SDGs 2 and 12, this includes;

• increasing smallholder farmer income (target 2.3 of UN SDG 2) 
• reducing farm waste (target 12.5 of UN SDG 12)

Some mediums used to understand farmers' needs include market tests, interviews and direct observation. We also regularly share our product features with users via digital channels like WhatsApp and video calls. For instance, we have a WhatsApp group of 'Super Users' who are provide critique on product design before investments to product development are made. In addition, we use A/B testing to observe how our product addresses farmer needs; like access to capital.

At Farmz2U, our vision is to "empower Sub Saharan African smallholder farmers with technology solutions that support sustainable farming practices" and our mission is to "build a data centric product that automates the farming process to increase produce yield and farmer income". 

Our vision and mission address the "Sustainable Food Systems" Challenge:

• Firstly, we support smallholder farmers with access to inputs, capital, and knowledge to improve yields while sustaining resource productivity. 

• Secondly, we improve supply chain practices to reduce food loss by increasing smallholder farmers' access to market using a new business model of market integrations via APIs.

Our main competitors include; Agrocenta (Ghana), We Farm (UK) and Smallholdr (UK). These enterprises support African smallholder farmers with software solutions.
Farmers currently depend on multiple digital and non-digital solutions to optimize farm operations. For instance, a farmer requiring access to tractor services will need to access a solution like Hello Tractor. However to find buyers for harvested produce, the farmer will need to access another solution like AFEX. Farmz2U's integration of farming services across the farming cycle via APIs, is a competitive advantage. For instance; we are integrating Hello Tractor and AFEX's services onto our platform, through collaborative partnerships. Our use data to improve farmers' decisions is also a competitive advantage for which we have IP assets (patent). Furthermore as an enterprise headquartered and operated in Africa, we are local experts that understand farmers' challenges and thus able to optimize value creation.

The core product is a software as a service (SaaS) platform built with microservice API architecture. This build ensures autonomy of our different features across the farmer lifecycle, from ‘pre-seed’ to ‘post-harvest’.

Data analytics and machine learning are key components of our SaaS platform. We use data from open and proprietary sources to provide farmers with ‘tailored agricultural expertise'. For instance, historic crop yields and soil composition support decisions on the crop to grow. We also leverage Azure FarmBeats for data analytics through our UNDP partnership. Python is used for coding algorithms for machine learning with data used to suggest solutions to farmer problems using underlying hypothesis. The product aims to increase the efficiency of each harvest cycle with a feedback loop.

In addition to the core SaaS product, we are exploring the use of hardware to improve data collection thus increasing the automation of decision-making on the farm and the adoption of sustainable farming practices that incorporate the farm’s specific needs. This approach supports precision agriculture which increases profitability and sustainability through more efficient resource use. To facilitate this activity, we initiated a POV proposal with CISCO Meraki to test their smart cameras and other hardware, for two use cases ‘farm motion detection’ and ‘farmer activity monitoring’. For instance, data from soil sensors can automate the detection of irrigation on the farm to ensure conformance with specifications on the SaaS platform. Similarly, pest and disease activity can be detected, through motion and pictures from smart cameras, to prevent infestation. 

ur solution utilizes widely used and accepted technology and less common technology which are detailed across four groups.

Software-as-a-service: this widely used method of delivering software solutions which leverages the use of cloud-based servers and databases which are critical for the volume of data that will be used for delivering the solution. Examples include fintech ventures like Mambu.

And while not widely used in Africa, increases in internet infrastructure and affordability has supported recent growth.

Data analytics: the analysis of raw data to generate insightful outputs in the form of information is a widely adopted technology. The less common and growing branch of this technology, Big Data, is also a technology that will be used as our data sets grow in Volume, Variety and Velocity. Examples include streaming services like Netflix.

Machine Learning: the use of systems to learn and improve actions from experience and known rules a growing technology. Amazon is a great example of how customers’ previous shopping activities predict future activities, thus increasing the automation of decision making. 

Swarm Robotics (automation via hardware): is a less common technology that is growing in adoption. Palo IT, a project partner on the UNDP Cultiv@te project, has a great implementation example of farm automation using hardware https://palo-it.com/en/case-study/agritech. Swarm robotics is the use of multiple hardware via a decentralised and distributed approach to complete specific tasks. In the example by Palo IT, hardware devices like; sensors and smart switches to automate irrigation and power supply on a Greenhouse farm. 

The impact we seek to achieve at Farmz2U, through business activities, are aligned to our vision and mission statements.

Vision: empower Sub Saharan African smallholder farmers with technology solutions that support modern farming practices

Mission: build a data centric product that automates the farming process to increase produce yield and farmer income

Our vision and mission address a problem that can be directly addressed by our target users, smallholder farmers.

Problem: 25% of the global population is estimated to be Africa by 2050. This increases food insecurity in the region.

The intended outcomes from our business activities are across four themes; product yield, food waste, average farmer income and jobs created. We use the SMART criteria in measuring our intended outcomes and these are monitored monthly and reviewed quarterly to track our path to success. We share these outcomes with internal, external, and connected stakeholders. Through prototype tests of our solution, we recorded the following outcomes:

• A 20% increase in produce yield using tailored agricultural expertise
• A 38% decrease in post-harvest waste
• An increase in average sales from $350 to $800 per farmer
• 10 jobs created for agricultural students

We seek to replicate these outcomes on a larger scale as user adoption grows.

Our outputs provide an indication of the fulfillment of outcomes, and these can be viewed from our key performance indicators (KPIs). For instance, metrics like monthly or daily active users and monthly account trials indicate the number of users accessing our solution and thus able to yield positive outcomes in their process like increase in produce yield and decrease in food waste. Below is an example of outputs:

The activities necessary to ensure an output happens. An output like monthly active usage of the product requires a working product. Thus, activities related to product development are included in this step of our theory of change. Below is an example of activities:

Finally, inputs are resources necessary for the completion of activities and includes financial, human, and social capital. Details of the financial and human capital inputs are detailed in our financial plan which can be viewed below:

Current Userbase

We are currently serving 930 farmers with our solution. This includes:

• 660 farmers who used our prototype during our testing period, who are currently being supported with our digital community
  • Includes farmers from the FADAMA World Bank project
• 250 users on our product (FMP v.1) following our soft launch in March 2020
• 300 users who have being supported with capital services via our start.farmz2u.com campaign
• 515 users on our product waitlist who will be on boarded onto the FMP v.1, and are currently being supported with our digital community
  • Includes 90% of users from the start.farmz2u.com campaign, and
  • 67% of prototype users

Projected Userbase (1 year)

We aim to grow our user base to 10,000 active users by 2021. This will be achieved with our growth strategy which employs online and offline channels for user engagement.

This growth prospect requires capital and human resource investments and partnerships. Our partnership with the UNDP on the Cultiv@te program will support this target given the focus on increasing adoption of digital solutions by Kenyan youth in agriculture.

Projected Userbase (5 years)

We aim to grow our user base to 200,000 active users by 2025 and we estimate we will have the required resources for this growth internally, assuming earlier capital targets are met. Our year 5 growth prospect estimates profit margin of 85% with break-even occurring by year 3. User estimates are direct product users of Farmz2U’s SaaS platform, and it does not include jobs created from increased farm activity.

Our goals within the next year focuses on user growth, farmers’ produce yield and revenue. In particular:

• Increase active user base from 500 to 10,000 through digital campaigns like http://start.farmz2u.com/, with a focus on women and youth farmers
• Create 48,000* jobs, like farm manager, through increased farming activity (*based on labor needs for operations across 9,500 farms)
• Increase produce yield from 33% of global averages to 50% through expertise on the platform
• Reduce food waste by 12% through better market access and alternative product uses, like fermented maize as bird feed (connecting maize and poultry farmers on our platform)
• Increase farmer income by $350* through direct access to buyers (*based on prices that exclude -distributor costs)

Our goals for the next five years are also across the same themes and are below:

• Increase our active userbase to 200,000 and expand product access beyond Nigeria and Kenya
• Create 1,000,000 jobs to support increased farming activity
• Increase produce yield from 33% of global averages to 85%
• Reduce farm waste from current levels of 38% to 20%
• Migrate farming jobs from the informal to formal sector

Our vision is to “empower the next generation of Sub Saharan African farmers with technology”. With a primary software solution, our solution can be easily adopted across the region. Furthermore, some of our product features are open source thus supporting replication and thus scale of impact. 

Key activities that will enable us accomplish our goals are tracked on our Atlassian JIRA board.

Lack of capital and revenue generation are some financial barriers we face. With the former, we estimate a capital investment of $1.5 million to support a 3-year growth plan in achieving our 2025 targets which include:

• increase crop yields from 33% (current levels) to 85% of global yields
• reduce farm waste from current levels of 48% to 20%
• increase farmer income by 500% to $22,500

With the latter the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of revenue collection and in April we introduced a three-month subscription freeze to reduce user churn amidst lower farmer incomes from disrupted distribution channels.

Access to reliable internet connection and mobile devices are technical barriers that have impacted our users' interaction with the product. With the former, farms in remote areas often have poor internet connection (3G or less) and unreliable energy supply intensifies this challenge. With the latter, some farmers only have access to feature phones and thus are unable to access product functions.

We manage barriers to our business goals in a risk register which identifies risks like regulation and infrastructure, that may hinder product adoption and revenue growth. A screenshot is below and a detailed version can be viewed here; https://www.dropbox.com/s/7flq6frxtktac28/FMP-RiskRegister-280520-2200.pdf?dl=0. Our risks are reviewed at least every month and risks are tracked across high, medium and low levels. With guidance from our mentors and advisors we develop strategies to reduce, own, accept or mitigate these risks (ROAM model) and thus reduce barriers to accomplishing our goals.

Our risk register, which provides an overview of the barriers that can hinder our success, is a living document that is regularly updated with internal and external changes. We have support from our mentors and advisors, who include experts in agriculture and business development, in developing strategies to address risks. These are then developed into ‘mitigation plans’ and ‘contingency plans’ to manage these risks and thus overcome barriers to our success.

For instance, we address the challenge of lack of capital through grants and debt funding. For instance, within 12 months, we received a $5,000 in-kind grant towards rent thus reducing operations costs and a $5,000 cash grant towards product development. We have also accessed $100,000 in technology credits from Microsoft and IBM which decreases product development costs. We also commenced a $500,000 seed round in January 2020 to address our capital needs. To address declining revenue, we have created additional revenue streams through value added services. We also directly integrating the services of capital providers like Sterling Bank on our platform which supports farmers’ capital yields while enabling easier revenue collection for access to Farmz2U’s SaaS platform.

Our offline-first mobile-first design minimizes the technical challenge of ‘unreliable internet connection’. By using an easily transportable device that only requires intermittent internet access with core product features available offline, we can increase product use and thus value creation for the farmer. We also seek to incorporate the use of USSD technology which will enable product access by users with feature phones.

Not applicable

Core Team - 5

Aisha Raheem (Chief Executive Officer) - Full Time

Tìmì Akogun (Chief Technology Officer) - Full Time

Debola Oyenuga (Lead Developer) - Full Time

Precious Ehiwario (Head of Business Intelligence) - Part Time

Mary Asanga (Agronomist) - Part Time

Support Team (Long-term Contractors) - 2

Emmanuel Moro (UI/UX Designer)

Joshua Matthew (Data Analyst)

Our diversity as a team and mutual dedication to address food sustainability and security challenges ensures we are well-positioned to deliver this solution. With skills and experience across agriculture, software development and data analytics, we have a robust view of the problem and thus able to explore a range of solutions.

As a team we have worked together with farming communities and our culture of learning and sharing supports collaboration while reducing risk. For instance, in deploying our first prototype we observed non-value adding features on the product and thus technical debt. We have since adopted a CI/CD development strategy that focuses on addressing ‘small issues fast' versus 'large issues slow’.

Furthermore, our ownership structure ensures accountability and responsibility across the team. All core team members have equity in the company with a vesting period of 2-4 years. This further supports a culture of learning, sharing and creativity which improves our ability to develop impactful solutions as a team. In addition, our membership in initiatives like the GIZ and Make-IT Africa “B2B Ventures Partnerships” ensures our participation in dialogue that influence agriculture and our target users. 

We currently have the following partners who support us across business and product development.   

United Nations Development Program; we are working alongside 31 global institutions to support Innovation in Sustainable Agriculture. Reference; https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2020/undp_s-agritech-initiative--cultiv-te-finalists-announced.html.

Microsoft Partner; with access to $25,000 in Azure credits towards product development on the Microsoft infrastructure we work with Microsoft engineers to leverage solutions like Azure FarmBeats. This partnership shortened our product development cycle and reduced costs. 

Sterling Bank; we are working with this indigenous Nigerian bank to enable easier access to capital access by farmers. We are currently preparing for a pilot in November which will enable direct capital access from the Farmz2U SaaS platform using pre-determined risk requirements. 

Royal Academy of Engineering; an academic institution who supports us with technical expertise that is used to support farmers. 

We operate a business to business model with our solution sold to organisations like farmer association cooperatives like AFAN (All Farmers Association of Nigeria) and farmer groups like Ewoko Concepts. 

Below is a detailed Business Model Canvas which outlines our:

• Key Partners; like agricultural cooperatives, farmer extension service groups and agri insurance companies among others.
• Key Activities; which includes providing agronomy expertise, enabling input sourcing and facilitating sales with buyers.
• Key Resources; this includes finance and human capital, technology, intellectual property and physical assets.
• Value Propositions; 
  • supporting farmers' operations with tailored agricultural expertise
  • providing farmers access to market
• Customer Relationships; this outlines communication mediums, customer acquisition and referral, and up selling services. It includes online mediums like our website and offline  mediums like farm visits. 
• Channels; which include online channels like digital campaigns (e.g. start.farmz2u.com) and offline channels like agricultural cooperative groups.
• Customer Segments; includes subsistence, small scale and medium scale farmers with farm sizes ranging from 2 to 100 acres.
• Cost Structure; which outlines our core cost groups which are currently factored across four cost centers.
• Revenue Streams; this currently includes subscription and commission pricing and we aim to introduce additional revenue streams (from up selling services).

As a for-profit social enterprise, recognition from Solve for our business solution will further support our growth prospects with a feasibility reference from a leading institution like MIT.  In addition, access to the Solve and MIT networks will enable access to mentors and advisors that will support product development and thus impact. For instance, through the Royal Academy of Engineering community, we have connected with experts at the Wageningen University who support agronomy expertise on our platform. Similarly, two of our advisors are academic experts from this community. In addition to access to strategic advice from experts, we are also in a community of peers where we share ideas, and this has supported our learning experience and product development cycle.  Solve’s nine-month program will also support us in achieving product market fit, whilst ensuring social targets remain a priority. With the growth of user leads we need to ensure financial and social (including environmental) targets are equally prioritized thus ensuring Farmz2U’s sustainability in fulfilling the business objective of "food sustainability and security". Access to capital through the primary $10,000 award and additional awards like the AI for Humanity and Innovation for Women prizes will also support our growth. Support from Solve will address current capital constraints and enable operational expansion to meet growing user needs.

• Product/Service Distribution
  
  • With the increase in our product's user adoption rate, access to experts in product market fit can increase scale and impact 

• Funding
  • Access to capital will increase our ability to expand operations and fulfil growing user needs
• Board members or advisors
  • Advisors can increase our network and access to resources, while supporting corporate governance
• Marketing, Media and Exposure
  • Increased market exposure will further support product adoption and increase our stakeholder connections

We will like to partner with MIT’s School of Engineering (Data,Systems & Society). Some prospective activities of this partnership includes:

• Geospatial Data Quality
  • Improve access to geospatial data that calculate indexes like NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and SAVI (Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index).

• Data Infrastructure
  • Optimize the architecture design for data inflow and outflow. The need for an optimized design will increase with the volume of data on the platform.

Through our work with farmers, we found a lack of gender equality among farmers. This is consistent with Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s report which stated that “women supply 70% of agricultural labor, 50% of animal husbandry related activities and 60% of food processing yet have access to only 20% of agricultural resources”. Some of the key challenges women face in agriculture are; lack of technological know how, inadequate finances, lack of land ownership rights, high rate of illiteracy, religious and cultural beliefs, and inadequate resources (Guardian Data Desk, 2017). 

 We aim to ensure a fairer distribution of agricultural resources across all farmers, irrespective of gender or age. Our users' diversity is currently monitored through our user on boarding process and we use women and youth empowerment groups to increase inclusion of disadvantaged groups. Through our product’s transparency and the use of empowerment groups, we increased gender and age diversity by 35% in 2019 and this supported our recognition by the Women in Africa 54 initiative as one of 144 leading female entrepreneurs on the continent. Farmz2U will further support the advancement of women in agriculture, specifically farming, through the Innovation for Women Prize.

Data science and machine learning can significantly improve value creation and problem solving in agriculture. With increasing levels of data generated on a constant basis (Velocity) alongside increased Volume and Variety, it is important for farmers to easily make decisions based on changing internal and external conditions.

For instance, climate change reduces the predictability of farming seasons which farmers are accustomed to. Thus, farmers need to quickly adapt their practices to changing environment conditions. This requires technical skills and access to resources that is often unavailable for the smallholder farmer.  Farmz2U is qualified for the AI for Humanity Prize because our use of data science and machine learning benefits low-income smallholder farmers who will be negatively impacted without an affordable solution that can support farming operations.

Farmz2U seeks to achieve in agriculture what late Patrick J McGovern achieved in media by implementing new and emerging technology trends to achieve social change.

Farmz2U's solution addresses future global problems "food sustainability and secuirty", and we were recognized by ShellLivewire for this through the Smarter Future Award. Our solution seeks to address the problem of a growing population on the African continent, with decreasing agricultural production and thus a growing food security risk. The Future Planet Capital Prize will connect us with investors who are driven to support our sustainable objectives and thus increase Farmz2U’s ability to succeed. As a for profit enterprise, connecting with impact focused investors is essential and will create value.