Over the years, Nigeria’s economy was solely dependent on agriculture. However, the huge revenue from crude oil production in the late 70’s and 80’s made agricultural productivity fall drastically.
However, because of the crash in global oil price in recent times, Nigerians have began to turn back to agriculture. Because of this trend, we have a lot of agro-startups springing out daily in Nigeria. All with the aim of solving the challenges faced in the agricultural sector of Nigeria.
Here is a list of few of the many agro-start-ups doing well in the industry.
Probity Farms
Probityfarms is a software designed to help farmers manage all their farm activities including crop and livestock. With the software, they are able to schedule tasks, track fertilizer usage and get SMS and email reminders of farm task. With the software,farmers are also able to capture sales, track expenses, calculate loans repayment and generate accounting reports.
The platform also offers farmer insights about farming activities powered by machine learning at each stage. For example, an alert can tell farmer not to apply fertilizer on particular days if the weather forecasts that it could rain.
Farminga
It was founded by Arthur Johnson Nwokolo, Akogun Oluwatimilehin, Stanley Aniobi. Farmnga is an online platform that allows buyers to easily locate farmers and their food products, and also compare prices before buying from nearby sellers. In other words, it is a market place that enables farmers and agribusiness owners to connect and sell faster for a better profit.
Farmcrowdy
Farmcrowdy is an online agriculture platform that allows Nigerians to participate in Agriculture using their mobile phones or computers. Nigerians anywhere in the world can invest an agreed sum to own a farm space, start and complete a farming cycle. Registered partners on the platform can sponsor any farm of their choice from Maize Farms to Poultry Farms to Cassava Farms and Tomato Farms. The Partners(investors) then get weekly updates about their farm’s progress including pictures and videos from the farmers. It was launched in 2016 by Onyeka Akumah.
Growsel
Similar to Farmcrowdy, Growsel wants to encourage Nigerians to make profit from farming without necessarily owning a farm. If you are interested in making money from farming, you should visit Growel’s website, select a farm you are interested, make the necessary negotiations and agreements then seat back and wait for your return on investment (roi) . The startup also provides advice through SMS to local farmers who have no access to Internet across rural areas in Nigeria.
Farm deals
Farmdeals is an agro-startup dedicated to connecting African farmers to both local and international buyers of farm produce.
It was founded by Oshiobugie Kenneth.
Releaf
Releaf is an agro startup that connects buyers and sellers of agricultural products to good customers. The startup has over 500 active users presently, over 100 connections and 600 companies on the platform. It was officially launched in August 2017.
Releaf which raised $120,000 investment from YCombinator in 2017 to scale its startup in Nigeria was founded by Isaiah Udotong, Ikenna Nzewi and Uzoma Ayogu.
Hello Tractor
For farmers that are practicing farming at a commercial scale, accessing tractors and modern agric equipments is one of the biggest problems. Hello Tractor is a platform that gives farmers the opportunity to rent tractor and other equipments. you can join their network of farmers paying for tractor services through their Mobile App.