Essymart Digital

Agriculture in Africa today is primarily based on family farming (small-scale farming), which employs 70% of the working population and supplies approximately 80% of the continent's food needs. Small-scale farmers in emerging markets face low yield productivity and profitability, resulting in low yields, malnutrition and a low standard of living. Access to agricultural inputs and services is challenging for farmers in rural communities with few to no agricultural service providers operating in their areas and limited training opportunities to achieve increasing farming yields. Rural farmers  travel long distances to access farm inputs or do not use inputs, and they often struggle with inadequate technical assistance and guidance during the agricultural season. Farmers also struggle with market access for their produce and fair market prices. As a result, farmers are often left with low yields and low incomes from farming activities.

Farming in rural Uganda is plagued by supply chain issues, underfunding, shortage of a skilled workforce, poor procurement and management practices that make it very costly where it exists and unavailable in a majority of areas within the country. 64% of smallholder farmers lack access to quality farm inputs, 1:2000 is the extension worker- farmer’s ratio in Uganda, 66%of mobile phone users in Uganda do not have access to smartphones and the internet and 15% of farmers access markets. On average, Smallholders walk about 10km and spend between 6-8 hours traveling to visit Agro- dealer shops to buy farm inputs. 

Essymart Africa is an Ag-Tech Platform with a mission to transform the lives of the smallholder farmers in Uganda by creating a holistic approach that is helping farmers to afford high quality and hybrid (drought resistant) seeds and organic fertilizers. Essymart provides the holistic support to smallholder farmers they need from Agro Inputs-to-market, to improve their productivity and profitability. In addition, the company is offering area extension services and market linkages to smallholder farmers. Using our Web App, Voice calls, SMS and USSD, farmers can chat and consult with Agronomists or Extension service officers, purchase farm inputs from our shops, and schedule home or farm visits with qualified agricultural professionals.

Our comprehensive approach ensures that Agricultural products and services are available to people who don't have a smartphone, and to people living in rural or underserved areas. Essymart bridges the gap in access to farming support, enabling people from all walks of life to receive the support they need.

Essymart sources genuine quality affordable Agricultural farm inputs from certified suppliers and manufacturers, provides timely last-mile delivery, and virtual extension as well as reliable market linkages for Smallholder Farmers in rural Uganda. Essymart is using cheaper Technology solutions to equally empower smallholder farmers, who have often suffered from lack of access to quality inputs, extension services, market information and poor advice. Our E-commerce platform allows farmers to order a variety of quality and affordable farm inputs as well as Tele-farming service provide quick and real time advisory services to the farmers in their local language directly on their mobile phone.

target beneficiaries 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.

Essymart team members have exceptional track records from the private business and agriculture development sectors, as well as a passion to jointly create new solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Essymart strongly believes in proximate leadership and local solutions and thus 99% of team members live within our local communities of operation. We’re a diverse team that’s unified by our core beliefs and dedication to making markets work for smallholder farmers.

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 has supported 3500 smallholder farmers achieve the following

-Increase maize yields from 300kg to 1,500kg, Bean yields from 50kg to 300kg

-Rice yields from 500kg to 1000kg, Veggies yields  from 1000kg to 5,000kg

-Fruit yields from 800kg to 3,000kg

-70% increase in incomes

-Improved soil quality

-Reduction in input costs

-Increase in yields

-Better crop prices in the market

-Reduced crop spoilage= increased incomes

I am applying to  the You Solve challenge to access leadership workshops and sessions to refine my leadership skills, fostering personal and professional growth. Along with acquiring insights into effective leadership strategies that can elevate my career and contribute to positive organizational change, as a participant will explore sustainable models and practices that can be applied to my professions, aligning personal success with environmental and social responsibility.  I expect to  gain practical knowledge on how to integrate sustainability into professional endeavors for long-term prosperity. Solve challenge will amplify my ability to make a positive impact in communities through enhanced civic engagement skills, allowing me to contribute to social initiatives along with acquiring a nuanced understanding of global policymaking, and to engage with policymakers for sustainable policies that align with my professional interests, I expect to gain skills in grant making, fundraising, and organizational development - empowering me to achieve the Essymart goals in support of sustainable change efforts in my community. We are applying to Solve because we would greatly benefit from assistance with our scale and revenue models, as well as our ability to validate the impact we are achieving.  This partnership would also further our goal of becoming a thought leader in health system design. 

We are a bunch of passionate young people who looked at the most wicked problems that make it impossible for Africa to feed itself, and were crazy enough to think they could solve it. Smallholder farmers who typically grow 2–4-hectare farms realize low yields compared to global averages. Post-harvest, 40% of yields are lost due to poor storage, and lack of access to markets. This impacts farm-level productivity and farmer incomes.

These problems arise because farmers rely on guesswork, instinct, and traditional knowledge to make operational decisions, thereby planting at the wrong time, using the wrong inputs i.e. Drought Tolerant seeds, fertilizer, and herbicides, and applying these at the wrong time. Limited incomes which also lower purchasing power make it impossible for these farmers to afford high-quality inputs, or access effective storage solutions. And these are the problems that we solve.
Essymart Africa solves these problems by building climate-smart farm and post-harvest infrastructure that enables smallholder farmers in distant pocket locations to access personalized agronomic advisory, storage, and market access services. We provide African smallholder farmers with the data to make smart decisions about what to grow that would sell and how to grow them optimally, so as to enable them to make more money off their farms through yield improvement and reduced post-harvest losses.
Essymart Africa is helping to build a resilient food system for African Agriculture that enables smallholders to improve their productivity and incomes, taking on the audacious goal of providing the infrastructure African smallholder farmers would require to produce the 60% more food required to feed 9.7 billion people by 2050. We are transforming African agriculture, one smallholder farmer at a time.

Essymart Africa is an Ag-Tech Platform with a mission to transform the lives of the smallholder farmers in Uganda by creating a holistic approach that is helping farmers to afford high quality farm inputs, training, finance and market access to help farmers increase yields and incomes.

IMPACT: Farmers will improve their livelihoods including;-  Better education, Medical care, Good houses, Strengthen family unit and Community unit and good nutrition

OUTCOMES: increased income for the farmers by 70% and Yields by 40%

OUTPUTS:  Higher yields, Better market pricing, modern soil management and Reduced spoilage during harvest and storage.

ACTIVITIES: Package and distribute seeds, fertilizers and pesticides,  Building the Web App & Mobile App to meet communication needs of farmers, Information embedded in the Apps about soil and crop management, Education & training, storage of crops, customer installment agreement and Real life Market data.

INPUTS: We buy inputs from suppliers in bulk e.g. seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, Technology- communication platforms e.g. whatsApp, SMS, Web App and phone calls, Agricultural training,  Financing and market access,- Market information and Demonstration farm

Essymart is working with 3,500 smallholder farmers to achieve the following 

-Increase maize yields from 300kg to 1,500kg, Bean yields from 50kg to 300kg

-Rice yields from 500kg to 1000kg, Veggies yields  from 1000kg to 5,000kg

-Fruit yields from 800kg to 3,000kg

-70% increase in incomes

-Improved soil quality

-Reduction in input costs

-Increase in yields

-Better crop prices in the market

-Reduced crop spoilage= increased incomes

Using our Web App, Voice calls, SMS and USSD, farmers can chat and consult with Agronomists or Extension service officers, purchase farm inputs from our shops, and schedule home or farm visits with qualified agricultural professionals. Essymart utilizes technology to improve the quality and efficiency of farming at the local level, while promoting the adoption of sustainable farming practices, compliance with national agricultural requirements and achievement of lasting improvements in farming outcomes.

Full-time employees are 05

Part-time staff are 10

3 years

Essymart is working with diverse team in terms of race, gender, and background which makes it form us  to understand and  able to serve a diverse customer base, which enabling us to increased market share and profits. Our employees feel valued and respected, they are actively engaged and committed to the company, which is leading to lower turnover rates and increased job satisfaction.

Having understood the complexity of agrarian distress, we have come up with a holistic model which provides end-to-end farming services to farmers through a digital platform Essymart. We collaborate with farm input Suppliers, Community Based Organizations (CBOs), Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), Farmers Cooperatives, Village savings groups and Village Agripreneurs (VAs) to deliver these products/ services at farmers' farm-gate. This integrated model not only helps farmers in increasing their income by increasing yields and reducing post-harvest expenses, but also offers better prices for their produce. Our team will be well positioned to generate revenue to sustain our work through charging 20% mark-up on farm inputs, 3% monthly Interest rate on credit sales, $3 membership fee and 20% markup on reselling agricultural produce to aggregators.

Essymart earns revenue from charging 20% mark-up on farm inputs, 3% monthly Interest rate on credit sales, $3 membership fee and 20% markup on reselling agricultural produce to aggregators. Essymart has received funding of $15,000 from Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs, $2,000 from Roddenberry Foundation and $5,000 from All-Inrecruiting and Talent Boutique USA.