Meet The Farmers’ Conference is an agro stakeholders’ conference that aims to connect large scale agro commodity producers to buyers from the Middle East. Key Stakeholders from Africa and GCC will come together during a one-day event to network, collaborate, and form potential business partnerships across borders to ensure food security in the Middle East and promote agribusiness in Africa. More importantly; African farmers, participants, exhibitors and delegates at this event will be able to leverage on the business opportunities available to them in Dubai and other GCC countries.

Crenov8 embarked on this mission in 2017 to create a platform where the African agricultural producers will meet with the off takers in the Middle East and beyond to effectively translate business deals; holding the first edition in Dubai last year.

Meet The Farmers Conference held its first African Conference edition in Ghana on July 4, 2018, at Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel, Accra and the Nigerian edition of the Africa conference is scheduled to hold on the 10th of October 2018 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos, Nigeria.

The main purpose of this event is to establish and strengthen the international trade ties that exist between Africa and the GCC through agriculture utilizing the unique positioning of Dubai as a hub. The focus for this year’s conference is ‘’The Future of Agribusiness.’’

According to Bola Oyedele of Crenov8 Consulting, “Meet The Farmers Conference is targeted at both large and small small-scale farmers to tap into the $100billion market in Dubai- that’s why we are partnering with relevant stakeholders across both government with Bank of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Federal Ministry of Agriculture as well as the private sector with the likes of Farmcrowdy and AFEX to help us aggregate farmers to export Agric produce to the UAE.”

Onyeka Akumah, CEO/ Co-founder at Farmcrowdy, speaking at the MTFC Nigeria Press Conference

“Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda have benefitted immensely from the first conference we held in Dubai in 2017 and we have set up warehouses and business links for many agribusinesses in the UAE.” She said.

On his part, the Executive Director, Finance and Risk Management – Bank of Agriculture; Prince Niyi Akenzua said that MTFC is a good initiative that must be sustained until it achieves its stated aims in linking Nigerian Agribusiness owners with the UAE market.

President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce; Babatunde Ruwase further stressed that the Meet the Farmers Conference will further encourage more stakeholders to invest in Agriculture and help build trade ties with the UAE especially Dubai.

Major partners of the conference, Farmcrowdy CEO; Onyeka Akumah praised the MTFC initiative, saying that the conference will go a long way in bringing Agric stakeholders in Africa together to link every step of the agricultural value chain under one umbrella where all sectors can discuss the crucial issues in Agriculture, find innovative solutions to them and most importantly benefit from each other.

Lauding the initiative, Country Manager, AFEX Commodities Exchange, Ayodeji Balogun, said AFEX is pleased to partner with the MTFC project as it will unlock the potential market of agribusiness across the value chain in Nigeria and the Middle East.

The Meet the Farmers Conference is supported by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Lagos State’s Ministry of Agriculture, Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Nigeria Export-Import Bank, FADAMA and AFEX Commodities Exchange Limited; all of whom were well represented at the Press briefing.

Also present at the media launch were Stanbic IBTC Bank, representatives from Ministry of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment and stakeholders from the agricultural sector, farmers, export authorities, banks, and suppliers of agricultural machineries, Agric start-ups amongst several other technical partners.

Interested participants can register for Meet the Farmers Conference Nigeria via here

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Tuesday, May 22nd, 2018 was a remarkable day for Nigeria’s first Digital Agriculture Platform focused on giving people the opportunity to own a farm without going to the farm; Farmcrowdy as it was honoured by the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari with the National Productivity Order of Merit Award (NPOM).

This year’s edition of National Productivity Award Ceremony was held at the NAF Conference Centre, Abuja and tagged “Productivity For Economic Recovery and Sustainable Growth,” and chaired by The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige.

Farmcrowdy was conferred with the National Productivity Order of Merit award by President Muhammadu Buhari alongside 14 prominent Nigerians serving, innovating, and contributing to the economic development of Nigeria through agriculture.

In his remark, Farmcrowdy CEO, Onyeka Akumah who received the award on behalf of his startup, thanked the President and the organisers for the honour and recognition and promised to contribute more to the economy of the country through Agriculture.

Akumah and his team will be present at the Meet The Farmers Conference (MTFC)  our Agri Value Chain Development Conference which will hold across four African Countries and in Dubai, UAE with the focus on The Future of Agribusiness.

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Photo Credit: vc4a.com

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.

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