Inclusive Platform for Marginalized Farmers

Up to 50% of food from agricultural smallholder communities in rural areas across Sub-Saharan Africa is lost between production, post-harvest handling, and consumption. With over 80% of all food in Africa being produced by smallholder farmers, this translates into a  lost economic opportunity for the millions of the already severely poor farmers. Addressing this loss would help reduce food loss, fight chronic hunger and malnutrition while creating economic opportunity for Africa’s rural poor. 

Our Solution is a mobile phone-driven platform that digitizes, streamlines and simplifies complex smallholder-sourced food supply chains.  Selina Wamucii’s main strength is the utilization of mobile technology to shorten and transform the agricultural supply chain while passing the benefits of an efficient chain to buyers, producer communities and the planet. 

At scale, our solution brings inclusive economic growth for economically marginalized family farmers across the developing world by giving them access to sustainable global markets. 

There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farming households globally, who comprise a large proportion of the world’s poor living on less than $2 a day. In Africa alone, over 80% of all food is produced by smallholder farmers, most of whom live below the poverty line. Yet, across Africa, up to  60% of food produced by these smallholder farmers never reaches the market due to inefficiencies along the value chain. And so this produce goes to waste despite the fact that each year, the demand for this produce runs into millions of tons. This translates into a lost economic opportunity for the already severely poor farmers. Addressing this loss through an inclusive platform that provides the missing link to global markets would bring economic opportunity to these marginalized farmers and would also help reduce chronic hunger and malnutrition among rural poor in Africa and across the developing world.

We are working with smallholder farming communities across African countries, who make up a significant portion of the world’s poor living on less than $2 a day. Creating economic opportunity and growth for smallholders needs to be a priority if we are to effectively tackle global poverty. 

Interactions with these communities via our mobile-driven platform and the day to day on-field engagements have enabled us to gather data and insights (unavailable there before) that help us to understand their challenges and guide us on what exactly needs to be done to effectively integrate the farmers into food value chains that offer them economic value.  Since the platform is inclusive, the farmers have equal opportunities to actively contribute to a sustainable food production ecosystem for all.

We are using the mobile phone to increase profitable market access for smallholder produce where currently up to  50% of all Africa’s smallholder produce never reaches markets. Increased market access will increase income and reduce poverty for this population. There exists a huge opportunity in enabling these smallholders to farm produce that meets global market requirements. 

Our solution is an efficient mobile-driven sourcing platform for produce from African smallholder farmers. It digitizes, shortens and transforms the agricultural supply chain while passing on the benefits of an efficient chain to both the small family farmers and produce buyers.

Farmers use their mobile phone to join the platform by dialing a USSD code. They are then mapped according to produce type, farm location, availability, volumes. This mapping makes it efficient to source from smallholder farmers. Selina Agents harvest and aggregate the produce. The farmers are then paid directly from the Selina platform via mobile money thus guaranteeing fair and prompt earnings for their produce. The produce is graded in zonal facilities, packed and shipped to buyers globally. This means that better quality produce arrives at the market at better prices given the chain efficiency and this leads to sustained market demand. 

Selina Wamucii’s main strength is the utilization of mobile phone technology to shorten and transform the agricultural supply chain while passing the benefits of an efficient chain to the farmers.

Our main advantage is the utilization of mobile phone technology to shorten and transform the agricultural supply chain while passing the benefits of an efficient chain to both the farmers and buyers. By so doing, Selina Wamucii is solving the major problems facing smallholder-sourced produce in an inclusive and integrated way: poor earnings for farmers, lack of steady market, difficulties meeting market-driven standards, inconsistent volumes and inefficient logistics. Presently, these problems are solved in isolation and the overall result is that the chain still remains broken and the farmers are excluded from global markets. This results in high prices and poor quality of smallholder sourced produce. Our innovation is enabling smallholder communities in Africa to grow produce that is acceptable in global markets, thus making it sustainably profitable to source produce from rural Africa while meeting market demand.

We are using mobile phone technology  - USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data).  It is the basic service provided by GSM network operators for sending and receiving data on a mobile device. The greatest advantage of USSD is that it does not require internet, thus enabling it to run on very basic phones. This provides the best avenue to quickly reach and connect with millions of smallholder communities. 

How it works:

i). Registration

The smallholders register by dialling a Selina Wamucii provided the unique number from their mobile phones. 

ii). Mapping All smallholders are mapped out indicating produce type, farm location, and projected volumes. This makes it possible to organize and manage the small fragmented farms for efficient aggregation and off-take.  

iii). Traceability

The mobile technology is enabling us to achieve traceability throughout the value chain. Traceability gives assurances to the end consumers that all the actors along the smallholder value chain meet the market standards for quality, safety, environment, trade, and labor.

iv). Route Optimization All aggregation routes are optimized for timely offtake to markets. This is crucial because of the fragmented nature of smallholders and the fact that each smallholder produces only a small quantity.  

v).Mobile Money Each smallholder is paid by mobile money, meaning they receive their money instantly. Mobile money is a valuable feature of our solution because a majority of the rural population lack access to formal or mainstream financial services. Mobile Money creates a channel for financial inclusion among previously excluded smallholder communities.  

Simply put, smallholder farmers across Africa are poor because they are not able to generate wealth from their only assets - their land, their labor and ability to exploit market opportunities for their produce.

Our theory of change is that access for smallholder farmers to knowledge, finance, technology, and markets creates and accelerates a virtuous cycle within agricultural value chains that sustainably increases the incomes of extremely poor rural families.

Selina Wamucii platform gives smallholder farmers guidance on inputs, good agricultural practices training and assurance of market access.

The combined effect of quality inputs, good agricultural practices and ready market should result in increased farm yields for the trained and motivated farmers.

Increased farm yield and market access should result in farmers selling more and earning better prices for their produce. More earnings for the farmers should result in more human capital investments like education, food and health and farm investments such as in irrigation equipment.

This would then lead to more productive farmers which would lead to inclusive growth and improved standards of living.

Selina Wamucii has impacted the lives of over 7000 smallholder farmers and increased their incomes by 86% on average. These farmers can now comfortably pay school fees for their children, pay urgent medical bills and even improve their homes. This impact has already earned us good recognition, including being named as a company to Inspire Africa in 2019 by the London Stock Exchange Group. 

Number of smallholder farmers we are currently serving: 7,856 

The target number of farmers in one year: 17,000

The target number of farmers in five years: 600,000

Within the next one year, Selina Wamucii will further develop it's platform to support more farmers with more features and services including agronomy, sustainable agricultural practices, inputs and financing.

Within the next 5 years, Selina Wamucii will continue to work with Africa’s food producers to ensure their produce is market ready. The overall strategy focuses on building a fluid value chain where smallholders are equipped enough to produce what markets will accept and absorb. For instance, they need to constantly know the right inputs, where to find them, how to apply, when, frequency and quantities. They need timely market information to ensure they produce the right types/varieties in good quality and volumes. They need to actively adapt or mitigate against climate change. 

Barriers for the next year

Talent Acquisition: Selina Wamucii will have to attract and retain top talent as we continue to grow in different geographical locations across Africa. There is a small pool of local talent available especially when it comes to business development skills. 

Access to Distribution: As we increase the number of farmers, the volume of produce will significantly increase and will have to move it through logistics and distribution channels already controlled by big players. In order to gain access to these channels and networks, Selina Wamucii will need to give incentives to compete and make ourselves attractive without jeopardizing the profitability of the business.

Adverse Market Fluctuations: Sudden fluctuation of produce prices and produce demand across diverse markets may cause difficulties in financial management and production planning.

Barriers for the next 5 years

In addition to the above current barriers:

Scalable Infrastructure: As Selina Wamucii grows, it will be important to ramp up our systems including IT, physical and organizational structures as part of supporting and accommodating growth.

Government policy and Tariffs: Different African countries have different policies, tariffs and trading agreements spread across different regional trading blocs.  Adapting our strategy to harmonize our operations with these regulations is a huge barrier.

Finance: In order to scale, Selina Wamucii will have to raise funding and exercise very diligent cash flow management. Without access to patient capital, growth will be constrained.

Talent Acquisition: Selina Wamucii will create a talent retention plan.  At the core of this plan is a vibrant company culture in addition to employee stock options.

Access to Distribution: Selina Wamucii is currently building distribution channels with a goal of becoming a completely vertically integrated company. In the meantime, we seek to give consistent volumes to a few strategic partners that incentivizes them to move our produce given the volumes, consistency, and exclusivity.

Adverse Market Fluctuations: Selina Wamucii is increasingly using artificial intelligence to analyze buying patterns and market trends. This will help avert if not adjust to downturn fluctuations while taking advantage of opportunities that may be foreseen. 

Scalable Infrastructure: As Selina Wamucii grows, the company will gradually move to core IT infrastructure to the cloud and experiment with an innovative approach for leasing/outsourcing physical and organizational assets.

Government policy and Tariffs: Join active organizations that have the ability to lobby African governments to implement progressive intra African trade policies. At the moment, there is hope with the enactment of The African Continental Free Trade Area  (AfCFTA), a free trade area.

Finance:  Selina Wamucii has put in place diligent cash flow management measures and is building an organization that is attractive to capital. The company founders are also cognizant of fundraising challenges in the  African space and have put in place a strategy for the eventual success of Selina Wamucii.

We have a core team of 12 full-time professionals, with relevant skills and experience. We also have a seasonal team of 260 people who work across agronomy, aggregation, and logistics. Additionally, we work with a network of 189 produce agents across rural areas.

John Oroko: CEO & Co-Founder

-Bachelor of Technology, Textile Engineering. -Born and raised in a smallholder family in rural Africa. -11 years of experience working with smallholder farmers.

Kariuki   Co-Founder A Chemical & Process engineer with extensive industrial expertise.

-10 years of experience working with farmers. -Born and raised in a smallholder family in rural Africa.

Selina Wamucii is partnering with the TOMMY HILFIGER Social Innovation Challenge to develop the cotton value chain in East Africa. The TOMMY HILFIGER Social Innovation Challenge is a global initiative that aims to support entrepreneurial start-up and scale-up stage businesses that are developing solutions that have a positive social impact on the fashion value chain. 

Selina Wamucii is currently partnering with global social impact program Expo Live, run by organizers of the next World Expo, Expo 2020 Dubai to improve the agricultural value chains of produce sourced from African smallholder farmers.Expo 2020 Dubai will take place from 20 October, 2020 to 10 April 2021. It will be a festival of human ingenuity that gives a glimpse into the future, guided by its three pillars: Opportunity, Mobility, and Sustainability.

Selina Wamucii is vetted and licensed by Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) to take smallholder-sourced produce to different countries around the world.  

Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) gives agronomy training to Selina Wamucii's team members including agents.KEPHIS is the government parastatal whose responsibility is to assure the quality of agricultural inputs and produce.

Selina Wamucii is a social impact-focused business, with a vision to build sustainable agricultural value chains that will lead to increased revenues for smallholder farmers. Our customers are smallholder farmers in Africa’s rural areas.  Each of these farmers cultivates 2.9 acres of land on average. Smallholder farmers grow over 80% of all the food in the continent. The key services we offer them are market intelligence, agronomy, and crop management which enable them to earn better prices by sustainably growing produce that meets the requirements of well paying global markets. We provide the service digitally through a mobile phone-driven platform which the farmers connect with through their mobile phones. Selina Wamucii generates revenue by way of a small markup fee for each unit of smallholder produce that is successfully facilitated via the platform throughout the entire journey from production to sale. 

Selina Wamucii has set short and medium-term goals to ensure financially-healthy and sustainable growth that will drive our pan African vision. Our main revenue stream is from the sale of smallholder-sourced produce moved through our platform. By making the value chain efficient, we are able to keep produce sourcing costs low and our margins enough to sustain our operations.   To this point, our operations are to a large extent funded by internally generated revenue and we envision keeping it this way as the social enterprise grows and scales to the rest of Africa.

We are applying to Solve because we would greatly benefit from assistance with our fundraising, business development efforts and also to enable us to scale effectively as well as strengthen our ability to validate the impact we aim to achieve.  It will help us to overcome these barriers: 

• Compliance: Selina Wamuci needs assistance to support farmers to sustainably comply with market requirements. They currently find it expensive and demanding. 

• Talent Acquisition: Good talent is expensive and this is one of the challenges we would need assistance to overcome. 

• Scaling: Selina Wamucii will benefit from mentorship and expertise in order to scale steadily across Africa and the developing world. 

• Global distribution: As Selina Wamucii works to ensure smallholders meet important market requirements, it will need assistance to tap into big global distribution channels that would absorb the increasing volume of produce.

• Marketing: Expert assistance to market our smallholder produce to global markets and get consumers around the world to understand that every time they purchase smallholder-sourced produce, they are contributing directly to lifting these communities out of extreme poverty. 

To reach its vision for smallholder communities, Selina Wamucii seeks partnerships with the following categories of organizations:

• Impact organizations for mentorship and advise on building sustainable impact.

• Agricultural input companies for strategic distribution of the right inputs to smallholder farmers in Africa. 

• Food retail chains to support our smallholder farmers in growing produce that meets their standards.

• Financial institutions to deliver financial inclusion services to the smallholder communities, the majority of whom remain excluded from mainstream financial services. 

To help our farmers increase yield and reduce post-harvest losses, Selina Wamucii is working towards incorporating into our platform technologies that will help reduce crop losses through integrated pest management. We have already developed algorithms that detect major pests and diseases affecting our farmers and are developing a comprehensive crop management tool to help farmers improve their yields using soil, weather, and farm data to help them make seamless decisions that will improve their yields and increase their income.

For example, our farmers would send photos of their crops using a smartphone’s back camera and, instantaneously diagnose the health of the crop and any issues with pests or diseases and displays the results on their phone’s screen. Our farmers can now detect crop diseases and deficiency of important nutrients such as phosphorus through our farmer companion tool.

In addition, we have a market cost prediction tool that helps farmers to know what to plant and when. Selina Wamucii is increasingly using artificial intelligence to analyze buying patterns and market trends. 

Selina Wamucii is creating economic opportunity for the millions of Africa's population that lives on less than $1 per day.  Over 500 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa live below the poverty line. Most of them work in Agriculture (directly or indirectly) where 70-80% of the continent's population works, including over 100 million smallholder farmers who directly produce 80% of all food in the continent. 

If Selina Wamucii wins the prize, the money will be very helpful. The company will use the funds as follows:

(i). Farmer support and skills development: Global buyers require critical standards that ensure safe and sustainable food production. Selina Wamucii needs support to equip its smallholder communities with critical skills to enable them to implement farming methods that will support the growing of produce that is satisfactory to market standards in a sustainable manner.  

(ii).Further system enhancement and development budget: The sourcing platform is extremely important for the success of Selina Wamucii. The platform requires further enhancement to increase the capacity to handle more farmers and transactions. This is important since it will enable us to make use of the fast growth of the mobile phone in Africa in order to build efficient and sustainable supply chains.

Empowering women is a central part of our work. This informs why Selina Wamucii's name is derived from the co-founders' mothers' names who were both smallholder farmers. The founders decided to name the company after their mothers as a way of honoring them because they were smallholder farmers who worked very hard to raise their families using the proceeds from their farming activities amidst very difficult circumstances. To date, 63% of Selina Wamucii's farmers are women smallholder farmers. 

Despite women having the bigger share of the agricultural labor force across Africa, they have always been marginalized economically as they are more likely to lack access to market and the earnings from the sale of their produce. When women prosper, they invest more in their families, resulting in their children having more nutritious food and being healthy. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, it is estimated that if women were given the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase the yields on their farms by 20-30% - which would, in turn, reduce the number of hungry people in the world by around 12-17%.

Selina Wamucii understands the challenges that women face as smallholder farmers and involves them in the sale of produce at the market, giving them more financial independence and fair market prices so they can adapt their farming businesses accordingly with earnings going directly to their phone via mobile money as opposed to through exploitative third parties.

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Selina Wamucii is building efficient, transparent and sustainable value chains for produce from smallholder farmers across Africa. We are using mobile technology to shorten and transform the agricultural supply chain while passing the benefits of an efficient chain to the farmers, most of whom live under 1 dollar a day. Ours is a bold bet, one of creating economic opportunity for millions of smallholder farmers and putting the farmers first and central to the food supply chain and lifting them out of poverty while at it. Our mission is in line with The Morgridge Family Foundation mission of transforming communities by creating opportunity. Together with The Morgridge Family Foundation support, we’ll definitely get there faster.

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