MIT Solve

Solution Overview & Team Lead Details

Solution name.

Essymart Digital

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

Essymart is a digital platform that uses Bulk SMS, Web Application,USSD Code to connect smallholder farmers with high quality, affordable farm inputs, real time weather updates, prices and market linkage

What specific problem are you trying to solve?

Smallholder farmers produce a large part of Uganda's food supply and employment. Despite the abundance of arable land, Ugandan smallholder farmers face several challenges that hinder their productivity and livelihoods. 3 million Ugandan smallholder subsistence farmers face limited access to the abundance of remote agricultural opportunities leading to:

1. Limited access to quality low-cost farm inputs and tools, leading to poor production, productivity and efficiency among smallholder farmers

2. Fragmented supply chains: Rural smallholder farmers are hampered by high costs of transport and inadequate basic infrastructure, limiting accessibiltiy to life improving products/services

3. Largely depend on middlemen to sell their agricultural output who pays little prices to farmers.

4. Uneven access to agricultural extension services significantly hinders smallholder farmers' ability to address these challenges. The lack of extension officers makes it difficult for farmers to manage their crops during unideal circumstances.

Elevator pitch

What is your solution?

Essymart is an Agtech startup passionate and focused on addressing the many challenges preventing small holder farmers to produce food more efficiently and profitably, we leverage technology and relevant strategic partnership to tackle challenges such as; access to high quality and affordable farm inputs, real time weather forecasts, trending prices, agronomy trainings, Agricultural extension services, Agricultural mechanization and access to premium markets as well as data-driven farm advisory and management services through the use of Web-App, Bulk SMS and USSD code. Essymart also provides door to door delivery, online and offline advisory services and direct linkage to buyers/off takers for their agricultural produce.

Essymart helps farmers solve their farming challenges, especially people who are socially or economically disadvantaged.

Customers browse the website, navigate and selects farm input of choice, place an order, select payment option (cashless or cash on delivery), the order is received by Essymart and processed and delivered within a day.

Essymart Online Farm input store: The platform gives easy access to buy and sell online such as agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizers, tool and selling agricultural produce with a single touch. All farm inputs from Essymart are delivered straight to your farm when you need them, no need to stress about logistics arrangement.

Bulk SMS Platform: The platform enables farmers to virtually interact with agronomist through push messaging where farmers get real time information on weather forecasts, prices, agricultural information and available farm inputs in stock.

USSD Code: With USSD, smallholder farmers interact directly from their mobile phones by making selections from various menus. The process flow for a USSD session begins when a farmer makes a request to a USSD code e.g. *123*45# from their mobile phone to order farm inputs, mobile payments and others services.

Who does your solution serve? In what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Our target customers are food crop smallholder farmers, aged between 18-65 years, rely on farming as their full time employment , In families of between 2-15 people, Earns less than $2 per day, There need is have access to high quality farm inputs, better farming practices, credit and access to profitable markets for their produce and They fear wasting their money on fake farm inputs, become victims of food insecurity and vicious cycle of poverty.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Our team invests in communities to deeply understand local-user needs and markets. We then find inspiring local agents and partner with them to create awareness about our concept, and develop it for the target market. We leverage our partnerships with established Farmers groups and Village saving groups for branding and accelerated distribution.

Viola Nakadama- Co-founder & Agronomist: Pursuing a diploma in organic agriculture , crop production and management from Rural Community Initiative for Development (RUCID)

Elvis Kadhama- Co-founder and CEO: 4 years experience in accounts & finance, agri-business, digital marketing and has a deep passion for nature, community, and socioeconomic change. Holds a diploma in Business Studies from Uganda College of Commerce Tororo.

Jockas Matte- Sales and Marketing lead: 5+ years experience sales and marketing from Solar now. He is a self driven and committed entrepreneur and passionate about Agribusiness. Holds a bachellors degree in Business Economics from Kyambogo University.

Viva Kasingye- IT specialist: 5+ years experience in software engineering, freelance web designer and front-end developer for clients around the world, and IT specialist at Essymart Africa. Holds a Bechellors degree in Information Tachnology from Makerere University.

Stella Doreen Namulondo- Customer relations lead: 3+ experience in customer care. She holds a Diploma in curbin crew and hotel management

What steps have you taken to understand the needs of the population you want to serve?

I come from a smallholder farming family. I saw my parents working on the farm day in and day out. Every year we cultivated with the hope having a bumper harvest and sell to repay the loans we had taken from the village banks and moneylender, but that never happened. I saw how difficult farming was, and how my parents struggled. They were not able to buy new clothes for us even though we are cotton-growing farmers. Growing up from Mayuge, I knew first-hand the suffering arising from lack of access to genuine, quality and affordable Agro-inputs and happen to meet Kauma Monica is a female farmer who went to a popular Agro-input shop in Mayuge to shop farm inputs and planted them. When it was time to harvest, she had the worst yield, she barely had any produce, “I moved around villages and asked farmers about how they find agro-inputs and they had similar experiences. There are millions of smallholder farmers like Monica who need to be socially protected and need access to digital tools to access really important and sometimes lifesaving products and services, even on credit! All these life stories made me and co-founders start Essymart Africa

Which aspects of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Other: Addressing an unmet social, environmental, or economic need not covered in the four dimensions above.

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in at least one community, which is poised for further growth

In what city, town, or region is your solution team located?

Mayuge, Uganda

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Viola Nakadama

More About Your Solution

If your solution has a website or an app, provide the link here:

https://essymart.com/

What makes your solution innovative?

Innovation is at the heart of everything we do. Not only do we develop innovative farming technology, our business model is designed to build a more equitable ecosystem.

Our team invests in communities to deeply understand local-user needs and markets. We then find inspiring local agents and partner with them to create awareness about our concept, and develop it for the target market. We leverage our partnerships with established Farmers groups and Village saving groups for branding and accelerated distribution.

Essymart runs a easy to buy and sell offline & online platforms that Provides farmers access to drought tolerance/disease tolerance seeds, early maturity seeds, high yielding and improved shelf life seeds leading to less application of chemicals, bio-fertilizers, bio-pesticides, offers farm input credit to farmers, direct market linkages to buyer and provide last mile distribution of product/services to customers door steps. Essymart also deploys Village Agripreneurs who help farmers to place orders online, and get their products delivered on time

What are your impact goals for the next year, and how will you achieve them?

3 million smallholder farmers inUganda lose money from agriculture predominantly due to limited access to high quality farm inputs and tools. Essymart’s theory-of-change is that by providing access to high quality, low-cost farm inputs, agricultural extension services, agricultural credit and direct connections to market, farmers will be able to benefit from farming, increase yields and earn sustainable incomes.

The impact we create directly are poverty alleviation, climate action and food security directly, as well as quality of work and reduced inequalities indirectly. We measure impact through the below indicators:

- Number of farmers reached

- Increase in additional income, money savings generated and food security

To achieve these impact goals, we have built the an easy to use online platform that is access on both computer and mobile phones. Additionally, we offer farmers financing, inputs, advisory and market linkage services. This integrated solution delivers upto $1,000 additional incomes/year/farmer and 60% increase in food security.

Essymart aims to reach 5,000 farmers in 1 year, 25,000 farmers in 2 years and 100,000 farmers in 5 years, creating a 2x increase in farm incomes for 100,000 farmers giving them a way out of poverty.

Describe the core technology that powers your solution.

Essymart Online Farm input store: The platform gives easy access to buy and sell online such as agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizers, tool and selling agricultural produce with a single touch. All farm inputs from Essymart are delivered straight to your farm when you need them, no need to stress about logistics arrangement.

Bulk SMS Platform: The platform enables farmers to virtually interact with agronomist through push messaging where farmers get real time information on weather forecasts, prices, agricultural information and available farm inputs in stock.

USSD Code: With USSD, smallholder farmers interact directly from their mobile phones by making selections from various menus. The process flow for a USSD session begins when a farmer makes a request to a USSD code e.g. *123*45# from their mobile phone to order farm inputs, mobile payments and others services.

Mobile Wallet services: Essymart is leveraging on Mobile money services to enable smallholder farmers transact using their mobile money wallets to pay for farm input on Essymart platform making it a chashless payment option.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Software and Mobile Applications

In which countries do you currently operate?

Uganda

How many people does your solution currently serve, and how many do you plan to serve in the next year? If you haven’t yet launched your solution, tell us how many people you plan to serve in the next year.

We are currently serving 1200 smallholder farmers with 650 active users from 250 farmer families. By end of 2023, we will scale our reach and impact to 5,000 farmers in 1,000 farmer families with our direct Agritech interventions. In3-5 years, we will reach and impact 100,000 people in 25,000 farmer families.

What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year?

Currently, we face four key challenges to scale:

Limited capital: we are currently facing unsustainable funding which is limiting scalability plans hence reaching a limited number of farmers.

Farmers agricultural financing - while our solutions offer low cost farm inputs lower than market, smallholders still need financing support. However, banks hesitate lending to farmers because they don't have collateral needed by these banks.

Farmers's advisory services - Advisory support is critical for farmers’ success and our current digital advisory model needs to be transformed to serve farmers at scale efficiently and economically.

Building team - Our rural and social impact context makes sourcing and retaining talent challenging. A 1,000-member team is needed to serve farmers in 5 years, and we are working on talent density through organisation building measures (culture, feedback systems, R&D), talent branding (social media, email campaigns).

Your Team

Business Model