Farmcrowdy Garners Up To £1,620,000 From Nigerian and Diasporan Investors Into The Agricultural Sector

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AgroTech platform in Nigeria, Farmcrowdy has revealed how it attracted up to £1,620,000 to the country’s agricultural sector from Nigerians and Nigerians in diaspora.

Farmcrowdy was founded in 2016, it’s the 1st Digital Agriculture Platform in Nigeria that focuses on connecting farm sponsors with real farmers in order to increase food production, while promoting youth participation in Agriculture. It gives Nigerians the opportunity to venture and participate in agriculture by selecting the kind of farms they want to sponsor.

The agro-technology company revealed that Nigerians based in UK are investing hugely in the country’s agricultural sector from the comfort of their homes through Farmcrowdy.

The company currently boasts of over 7,000 signed up farmers in Africa’s most populous country, with over 10,000 acres of farmland.

“With the current climate of economic uncertainty surrounding the UK with the likes of Brexit for example, we feel it is important that options and alternative means of investment are made available.”

“The UK is home to over 1 million Nigerians, and with a multi-million pound remittance market, Nigerians living in the Diaspora have the option to not only send money home to their families for their upkeep, but also build their personal investment portfolios through investing in one of the country’s largest sectors,” says Onyeka Akumah, CEO and Co-Founder.

Farmcrowdy is restructuring the way by which individuals take an interest in farming and food production by utilizing their online and mobile platforms and forecasts that hundreds more Nigerians living in the UK will hope to put their cash into the nation’s assessed £30bn agrarian segment, because of the solid rates of profitability, and the way that innovation is presently separating obstructions to venture and engagement.

In the same vein, VP Operations and Co-Founder, Tope Omotolani maintained that, “Our platform makes it easy for Nigerians in the Diaspora to use their funds to directly impact smallholder farmers who are in dire need of this kind of capital intervention to expand and optimize their farming activities. This in turn gives the sponsors an opportunity to empower farmers and make healthy returns at the end of the farm cycle.

“Rural farmers contribute the largest amount of food crops that are grown in Nigeria’s economy, yet they have the least amount of resources to cultivate important food crops. In order to increase food production in Nigeria, we have set a goal to work with 50,000 farmers by the year 2020. This is no small goal by any means but we also understand that the impact these would create in the lives of the farmers, their community and in the country as a whole would be remarkable.”

With sponsorship starting from N90,000 (£175), Farmcrowdy connects small scale farmers with sponsors, who invest in crop cycles. A crop cycle can be anything from poultry [3-5 months] to cassava [9 months]. The farmers receive on-the-ground advice from farm specialists – training in better agriculture practices, different type of crops and production methods.

When the yield is sold at harvest, the sponsor receives their original investment + 40% of the profit, the farmer receives 40% of the profit and Farmcrowdy receives 20% of the profit. Farm Sponsors can get between 6-15% on their returns.

While this farm process is ongoing, the Farm Sponsors are able to keep track of the full cycle through Farmcrowdy’s mobile app which has marked 60,000 unique downloads to date, and by receiving regular updates in text, pictures and videos.

With sponsorship beginning from N90,000 (£175), Farmcrowdy connects little scale farmers with supports, who put resources into crop cycles. A crop cycle can be anything from poultry [3-5 months] to cassava [9 months]. The farmers get on-the-ground counsel from farm authorities – training in better farming practices, distinctive kind of crops and production techniques.

At the point when the yield is sold at harvest, the sponsor gets their original investement + 40% of the profits, the farmers gets 40% of the income and Farmcrowdy gets 20% of the yield. Farm Sponsors can get between 6-15% on their profits.

While this farm process is progressing, the Farm Sponsors can monitor the full burn through Farmcrowdy’s portable application which has checked 60,000 interesting downloads to date, and by accepting normal updates in content, pictures and recordings.

Oyawale Olusola who is the VP Investment and Corporate Governance of the company also stated that “The scale of the Nigerian agricultural sector is huge; there are currently around 38 million small scale farmers who are unbankable; our mission is to connect them with Sponsors who are interested in farming, and who want to invest in the market. Nigerians understand how dominant the agricultural market is in the country, but there hasn’t been a reliable route to market, in terms of sourcing farmers and making/receiving payments.

“This is the challenge Farmcrowdy set out to conquer, and we’ve recorded some super strong interest already, not only from Sponsors in Nigeria, but also from the Diaspora, which is why we’ve come to the UK this week, to grow our user base here.

“Nigerians in the Diaspora have strong ties to relatives back home and have the desire to influence economic and social change; they also understand the sheer scale of Nigeria’s agricultural sector. Through Farmcrowdy, we want to facilitate narratives that focus on the ability to effect this change, as well as generate revenues both for our farmers, as well as our sponsors. Farmcrowdy is a platform through which engaging and collaborating with Nigerians in the UK, we can collectively help build and contribute to the Nigerian agricultural sector and boost national food security”.

Up till now, the platform has accumulated dynamic support base totalling more than 1,000 backers, and aggregate investments from outside of Nigeria in overabundance of £1,620,000 with a developing number of patrons in the UK, because of the Diaspora’s solid associations with Nigeria.