Farmcrowdy
Farmcrowdy is Nigeria’s first Digital Agriculture platform that empowers rural farmers simply by connecting them with farm sponsors, to boost food production and security across the African continent while promoting youth participation in Agriculture. Farmcrowdy provides real farmers with farm inputs, improved seeds, training on modern farming techniques and a market place for the sale of their farm produce.
By introducing rural farmers to mechanized agriculture, Farmcrowdy provides them with the opportunity to farm more acres, leading to high food production and security in Nigeria and Africa. The company thrives on the vision to be the foremost digital Agricultural platform in Africa, singled out for its significant impact on collaborative food production and the facilitation of food security.
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The Agric-tech platform was founded by the inspiring technology entrepreneur, Onyeka Akumah, alongside other Co-Founders like Akindele Phillips, Tope Omotolani, Jimoh Maiyegun and Ifeanyi Anazodo. The company constantly works on a mission to enable inclusion in the quest for global food security across Africa.
Farmcrowdy offers products across a wide range of sectors in line with its vision to enable Agricultural advancement. Its operational services include Farmcrowdy (FC) Structured Finance, FC Aggregation and Sales, FC Technology and Data, FC Foods, FC Insurance and FC Marketing.
Farmcrowdy provides Nigerians with the opportunity to participate in Agriculture by selecting suitable farms to sponsor. Through the sponsor’s funds, Farmcrowdy secures the land, engages the farmer, plants the seeds, ensure the farmers and farm produce, complete the full farming cycle, sell the harvest and pay the farmer to sponsor a return on their sponsorship. While these farm processes are ongoing, the farm sponsors are privileged to keep track of the full-cycle by getting updates in text, pictures and videos.
The company uses a profit-sharing model where the post-harvest revenues are shared among farm sponsors, farmers and itself, retaining a 20% portion of the profits. Farmcrowdy offers a unique selling proposition to local investors by enabling access to a financial system whereby investors can directly invest in a variety of crop harvests from the convenience of their mobile devices. Through digital financial technology, Farmcrowdy hopes to provide an alternative financing channel for locals to invest in Agriculture.
Since its inception in 2016, Farmcrowdy has empowered more than 25,000 farmers, engaged with over 182,000 farmers across the country and has deployed $15 million for farming projects within three years of operation. Farmcrowdy continues to focus on expanding its reach across Nigeria in order to facilitate more empowerments, which will positively impact the lives of farmers and their families while increasing food production and sustainability in Nigeria.
The company acquired Best Foods L&P Limited in February 2020 to offer a more accessible livestock production and processing solution to the meat market at affordable prices in Nigeria and other parts of the world.
For their contribution to boosting Agriculture in Africa and enabling inclusiveness in the provision of food security, Farmcrowdy has received several awards just within a few years of operation.
In 2019, Farmcrowdy won Africa’s Innovative Business of the Year by the British Awards for African Development, International Awards for Innovative Ideas and Technologies in Agribusiness, the Next Bulls Award by the Nigerian Stock Exchange and Business Day, as well as London Stock Exchange for Companies, to Inspire Africa. In 2018, Farmcrowdy won Nigeria Technology Award for Agri-Tech Company of the Year, Annual Business Day Top 100 Fastest-Growing SME in Nigeria, Digital Business of the Year by Global African Business Awards and more.
Farmcrowdy offers an ecosystem of services that helps farmers, producers, financial institutions and state government make smarter decisions that result in lower production costs, reduced lending risk, better yields, efficient marketing, increased income and an increased rate of food security.