This app is helping Nigerian farmers sell their produce amid COVID-19 outbreak

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With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges hampering the attainment of food security in Africa’s most populous nation may deepen. Although Nigeria has relaxed some lockdown restrictions in recent weeks in an effort to revive the economy despite the rising number of cases, Africa’s most populous country’s farming sector has been adversely affected due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

From tightening of credit access to limited transport access, these constraints are having a ripple effect on food production and transportation, leading to an increase in food prices and limiting the population’s access to nutritious food.

Amid these gloomy times, it is pertinent to leverage technology to ensure that the farming sector is not further impacted by the distortions caused by COVID-19 and ‘FarmyApp’ is doing the same.

The application is an online market where farmers put their products and services for sale before the harvest date. It is projected that one-third of agricultural products in Nigeria perish before they get to the market due to the huge difference between the harvest time and the time taken for it to arrive at the market or the consumer.

Most of these products arrive at the market in bad conditions due to poor road network, packaging and handling. Most farmers who sell their products early in the mornings harvest their products in the evenings in order to meet up with their customers, which then makes them, use preservatives that not only increase the cost of production but also affect the market price of agricultural products.

“FarmyApp helps farmers sell their products at harvest by helping them market the farm products before availability and puts the farmer in control of both production and the price which creates a levelled ground for competition among the small, medium and large-scale farmers who can leverage the platform to sell their products,” FarmyApp CEO Abass Olaiye Ayotunde said.

“Selling agricultural products to the first buyer will not be the only aim but also to put distance from buyer to seller into consideration. Since one of our primary aims for the platform is to get agricultural products to the customers at the most affordable price in the shortest possible time, operations research and machine learning are being used to recommend based on last purchase and on distance,” Ayotunde added.

FarmyApp

Many things have to be in place before agricultural products can be ready for consumption. These things require the help of skilled workers, chemicals, equipment, machines and human effort and this is why both the sale of agricultural outputs and inputs such as equipment, machinery and all other things that are required for efficient production of agricultural outputs on the farm is available on FarmyApp, according to the company.

One of the barriers for entry into the agricultural industry in the African country is the cost of buying equipment, availability of land and other inputs for production.

For youth, opportunities like this will encourage them to invest and to explore the agricultural industry, the company’s founder stated.

Soon, the app will also collaborate with research institutes, the government and private companies in order to train young school learners on the basics of agriculture and setting up successful farms in the 21st century and in the future we hope to create.

When asked about the future plans, the company’s CEO said that more innovations and solutions for the Nigerian agro-economic sector are developing and will be unveiled on this revolutionary platform in due time.

It is worth mentioning here that the company was co-founded by Abass Olaiya Ayotunde (CEO), Popoola Covenant Ifeoluwa and Afolabi Damilare.

 

Disclaimer: Informations provided here are for general awareness only and Agrigate Global does not endorse them in any way.