HERVEST

Female small holder farmers in Nigeria experience constraints which limit their access to extension services. In most cases, cultural restrictions prevent male extension officers from meeting with women farmers. Secondly domestic responsibilities sometimes limit women's mobility making it harder for them to attend courses away from home. Thirdly, Nigerian women are less likely than men to speak the national official language and extension services are often not offered in the local language.

HerVest aggregates and digitizes language based data and real-time information about climate change, soil testing of specific crops, complimentary crop information and linkage of female farmers to nearest clusters. HerVest also works with key stakeholders to obtain updated database of female farmers. HerVest sends language-based bi-weekly messages to the female farmers across 36 states in Nigeria. 

Globally, female farmers have been marginalized due to lack of information about farming best practices. This e-extension service can be scaled to other African countries with predominant numbers of marginalized women farmers and subsequently to other parts of the world. 

Women small scale farmers constitute about 75% of the entire 12 Million agricultural labour force in Nigeria. They are involved in all aspects of Agriculture from planting to marketing. 

Societal constructs hold them back in accessing resources such as financing and knowledge capacity in Agricultural best-practices. (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations -FAO)

Cultural restrictions, domestic responsibilities and illiteracy are limiting factors for female farmer's inactive participation in Agricultural extension services.

When compared to their male counterparts, these have hindered female farmers excelling at the same pace as the male farmers.

HerVest is working directly with almost 9 Million female small-scale farmers in Nigeria providing digitized extension services on best farming practices complementary with low interest financing.

HerVest leverage partnerships with major stakeholders in agricultural ecosystem such as the Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria (SWOFON), All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) to understand grass-root information and challenges that women farmers experience particularly in the rural areas.

HerVest extension services provides language based, real-time, specific and research-based information to these women farmers via suitable, personalized channels  extracted from their database.

With the extension services at their fingertips, they can make healthy decisions for their enterprises and personal growth. Connection to the nearest women clusters will also enable them to have better access to cooperative funding as well as wider routes to market off-takers.

This will ultimately improve their living standards making them contribute effectively to the economic GDP in Nigeria and therefore reducing their vulnerability to gender-based violence.

In alignment with World Bank's Mission Billion Challenge for innovative solutions to how countries can increase their efforts to support vulnerable groups such as women and girls, poor and informal workers; HerVest is working directly with almost 9 Million female small-scale farmers in Nigeria providing digitized extension services on best farming practices complementary with low interest financing.

Female small scale farmers make up 70% of the entire Agricultural force in Nigeria yet they are marginalised with no specific budgetary allocation or subsidized extension services. This challenge greatly ties into the HerVest offering of improving the capacity of these small scale women farmers hereby increasing their economic chances.

Up until now, female smallscale farmers in Nigeria experience constraints which limit their access to extension services. In most cases, cultural restrictions prevent male extension officers from meeting with women farmers. Secondly domestic responsibilities sometimes limit women's mobility making it harder for them to attend courses away from home. Thirdly, Nigerian women are less likely than men to speak the national official language and extension services are often not offered in the local language.

With no specific budgetary allocation or subsidized extension services, female small scale farmers in Nigeria have had it difficult to compete favourably with their male counterparts making them stagnant with no luxury of scale or increase to their trade.

 HerVest aggregation and digitization of language based data and real-time information to nearest clusters about climate change, soil testing of specific crops, complimentary crop information and linkage of female farmers helps these women to make better choices and ensure best practices in farming. 

HerVest also works with key stakeholders to obtain updated database of female farmers. HerVest sends language-based bi-weekly messages to the female farmers across 36 states in Nigeria. 

Female farmers have been marginalized due to lack of information about farming best practices. This e-extension service can be scaled to other African countries with predominant numbers of marginalized women farmers and subsequently to other parts of the world. 

HerVest holds a strong faith in the use of technology, insights, and digital tools to solve women’s problems particularly in increasing the financial inclusion of women in Nigeria. Its approach is to strengthen the capacity of  formally excluded women in making decisive investments in diverse financial markets particularly in female small scale farmers who generally lack access to capital or saving habits due to limited resources.

HerVest is a women-focused, easy-to-use Agri-financial platform that enables women to be financed. Also, the platform leverages specific messaging platforms such as SMS, USSD accessible to these women farmers to extend its e-extension services 

These services include but are not limited to; research based,real-time information about climate change, soil testing of specific crops, complimentary crop information and linkage of female farmers to nearest clusters.

The solution thrives because of the following; It is research led combining qualitative and quantitative data. Offerings are specifically based and shared on already pre-identified  channels.

Over time, we have recorded 99 out of our pilot test of 114 women adopt better farm-practices as well as get more confident in their trade subsequently reducing their vulnerabilities to gender-based violence and poverty.

HerVest's commitment is to bridge the knowledge gap that presently exists between female farmers and their male counterparts on Agricultural extension services. Firmly believing that research-based information is a strong factor in determining the success of female farmers in Nigeria, HerVest is working to deploy at no cost verifiable, woman specific extension services to the 9 Million female small-scale farmers in Nigeria

HerVest works together with the major stakeholders in agricultural ecosystem such as the Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria (SWOFON), All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) to understand grass-root information and challenges that women farmers experience particularly in the rural areas.

Quarterly, HerVest deploys a third-party monitoring and evaluation to evaluate the impact of the e-extension services particularly in the pilot stage.

Nigeria is an ID-challenged state with a nominal ID process achieved with the recently introduced Bank Verification Number (BVN) scheme, a unique identifier number every bank holder has.

However, majority of these rural small holder farmer groups do not have enough resources or poorly educated to hold a bank account. Our database collation serves as identifier for these otherwise unidentified women. HerVest further opens savings account for willing women on its platform while also encouraging them to have savings from the proceeds of their now innovative farming systems courtesy our extension services.

HerVest uses a user-friendly web interface to create SMS campaigns, manage the female small-scale farmer's data, and track service campaign and behavior without any development knowledge.  

Some of the features are: 

• Reporting and analytics to view, analyze and export comprehensive reports 

• Dashboard view with customization summary of your campaigns and SMS traffic 
• Subscriber management / Database management to help you manage your contacts 
• Personalized messaging to fit needs of categorized small-scale female farmers
• Scheduling which allows you to prepare a campaign now, but send it when it's appropriate 

There ought to be no difference between a male and female small-scale farmer. However, due to societal constructs and constraints, the female small-scale farmer does not have access at the same level with her male counterpart. HerVest e-extension services bridges this gap by providing resources that will strengthen the capacity of female small-scale farmers in Nigeria.

Majority of female small-scale farmers are in rural communities meaning that they produce minimally which does not allow them to scale to significant profitable margins. the HerVest e-extension service encourages them to be connected to women affinity groups. Within these groups, peer-to-peer learning, funding, subsidized inputs are all available

HerVest adopts Short Message Services and USSD solution to adequately address identified challenges that are peculiar to female small-scale farmers like; poor internet coverage, low smartphone usage. The SMS method allows for easy usage to combat low literacy levels in these parts. 

The USSD and SMS solution does not require internet connection but requires only GSM network. 

Also important is the highly interactive and customizable nature of the solutions which is also adopted for surveys and feedback purposes.

We currently serve about 1,000 female small-scale farmers across 3 States in Nigeria

In the next one year, we intend to expand to 15 additional states reaching about 20,000 female small-scale farmers.

In the next five years, we intend to have reached the whole 36 States of Nigeria, covering about 9 Million female small-scale farmers.

HerVest's goal is to build a more robust e-extension system.

HerVest as a financial inclusion startup for women is committed to building a strong pipeline of financially empowered women. This is connected to specific Sustainable Development Goals; GENDER EQUALITY and DECENT WORK.

We currently serve about 1,000 female small-scale farmers across 3 States in Nigeria

In the next five years, we intend to have reached the whole 36 States of Nigeria, covering about 9 Million female small-scale farmers.

The immediate need of HerVest is to be able to scale this service reaching the 36 States of Nigeria while delivering research driven, e-extension services through a robust technology platform.

Funding is a major challenge to help HerVest scale effectively. It currently deploys at a lower scale; There is a need for investment into the technology and research to bring the over 9 Million small-scale female farmers across Nigeria, meaningful, real-time and enabling e-extension services.

HerVest intends to leverage partnerships with funding organisations, multilateral agencies and Venture Capitalist to build a world-class, robust and research driven e-extension solutions to the over 9 Million marginalized female small-scale farmers in Nigeria.

15 team members.

HerVest has people of diverse skill-set across business development, research, data aggregation, .

The Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria (SWOFON)

SWOFON has an ecosystem of all registered female small scale farmers even in the remotest areas in the country.

HerVest's partnership with SWOFON is to be able to get approved access to these network of women.

HerVest also works with SWOFON to identify priority member groups and extend HerVest's e-extension services based on urgency.

All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN)

HerVest Partnership with AFAN is to advocate for policies that will favour female small scale farmers particularly in the areas of extension services and financing. 

HerVest presently combines all funding streams including grant, impact investing, donations and venture capitalists to ensure sustainability of this solution. Currently, it is been self funded by the HerVest team.

We have not raised funds before now.

Grants: $100,000 - to improve on the existing web interface platform and build a faster automated system that integrates all relevant applications.

Impact investing: $50,000 - to build the internal structure of the organisation - staffing, trainings and research

Venture Capitalist: $10,000  

BUDGET

Technology - $80,000 - to serve over 20,000 small scale female farmers in the next 1 year 

Research - $30,000 - Research and information aggregation to achieve baseline assessment, need assessment focus groups etc. 

Human Resource $25,000

Administrative Cost $15,000

HerVest is applying to the World Bank Mission Billion Challenge because of its commitment to build a resilient ecosystem of strong, knowledgeable and financially empowered female small scale farmers in Nigeria.

Women small scale farmers constitute about 75% of the entire 12 Million agricultural labour force in Nigeria. They are involved in all aspects of Agriculture from planting to marketing.

Societal constructs hold them back in accessing resources such as financing and knowledge capacity in Agricultural best-practices. (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations -FAO)

Cultural restrictions, domestic responsibilities and illiteracy are limiting factors for female farmer's inactive participation in Agricultural extension services.

When compared to their male counterparts, these have hindered female farmers excelling at the same pace as the male farmers.

Partnerships being the bedrock of all Sustainable Development Goals is essential to HerVest to be able to deliver on all set objectives. 

Funding partnerships is important as the technology involved is capital intensive.

HerVest would like to partner with MIT for advisory and technical support.

HerVest would like to partner with World Bank as one of its implementing project partners here in Nigeria. This is to enable HerVest to have more extended access to the government and other multilateral agencies.

HerVest would like to partner with Venture Capitalists so as to be able to raise more funds for its sustainability.