AgTech Meet Up with Jos Farmers

Demand for agricultural crops is expected to double as the world's population reaches 9.1 billion by 2050. Increasing the quantity and quality of food in response to growing demand will require
increased agricultural productivity. Good agricultural practices, often in combination with effective input use, are one of the best ways to increase smallholder and commercial farmers' productivity.

It is on record that billions of dollars from Nigeria are spent on food imports yearly. This is a huge economic opportunity that could be explored by farmers, food companies and investors in Nigeria.

With so much opportunities available in the agricultural industry in Nigeria: Growsel, an agtech startup is focused on changing the face of farming in Nigeria. They held farmers meet-up yesterday 21 August 2017 in Jos Plateau state and members of Techies in Jos (TIJ) were in attendance.

Growsel, an AgTech startup, based in Lagos is providing access to new private investment, global agricultural best practices, farming insights, training, facts, and tips through SMS to local farmers without access to the Internet across rural areas.

Nigeria is a country where 70% of it's population are farmers, and even though a large percentage of us are farmers, agriculture contributes less than 30% to Nigeria's GDP. 75% of farmers in Nigeria are small holder farmers while the remaining 25% are commercial farmers. The irony is that 75% of our produce come from the 25% of commercial farmers while 25% comes from 75% of small holder farmers. 

The major problem farmers Nigeria is not just the access to funds. The problem farmers face in Nigeria is lack of access to agricultural best practices, most farmers don't really understand the basis of farming.

Practices like not correctly knowing the exact number of crops a particular piece of land can contain, farmers not carrying out soil tests before they begin planting and also the aspect of planting very different crops on the same piece of land are examples of bad agricultural practices that ends up shortchanging these farmers in the long run. 

Commercial and government banks are not willing to provide loans to farmers because their return on investment (ROI) is not guaranteed - this is a problem growsel is focused on solving. 

Growsel provides three services 

1. Access to Funding

Growsel connects you with the funds needed to grow and harvest your crops. They have a team of investors that are interested in agriculture but don't really have time to farm. They connect highly experienced farmers to investors.

2. Access to inputs

They give feeds for your poultry, they have global and local partners that can train poultry farmers so they can understand better ways of taking care of their poultry.

3. Access to technology 

The right technology would help local farmers know what to expect at every point in time. Growsel provides technology to help you track activities in your farm and also the weather.

As a farmer, what you are going to be providing is the piece of land you intend to farm on and your skill. Growsel is looking to partner with skilled farmers so they can connect them with the right funds needed to increase their scale of farming. Your expertise of farming will determine the number of farms you can have on their platform. 

They work with a 150% ROI for every farm. That's the benchmark. Farmers get access to seeds, fingerlings, feeds, All you bring to the table is your land and your expertise. 

Every farm is insured, farms are insured to mitigate risks, especially the commercial farms. The farmer too are insured against personal accident like a bottle cut or snake bites. The farmer is also insured just in case he dies, his family is catered for to a point.

Farmers get access to their app which helps you with real time updates on weather and other important factors that would affect their farms. 

As an investor, you are guaranteed a 30% returned on investment. 

You can more information about by visiting www.growsel.com 

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