Create Jira Ticket
This idea cannot be sent to Jira.
RaebConnect-Farmers E-Business Manager
RaebConnect is a digital platform that will maintain farmers production and financial records and analyses it to produce information for informed decision by Farm Managers,Investors and Financial Institutions.This platform enables farmers to remotely update their farm business record using USSD/SMS this allows the farmer to keep track of its expenses pending the visit of our freelance extension agents who will validate the farmers data.This approach is to ensure that the data sent by the farmer to the platform is real and a true reflection of his cost or expenses.This innovation is aimed at increasing Farmers productivity,reducing their risk profile and decreasing the financial institution operational cost of monitoring and keeping record on farmers performance.It uses QR codes and freelance extension agents to uniquely identify farmers,capture all their financial transactions and production records.It is enabled to manage loans,automatically make calculations and integrated with mobile money application to allow rural unbanked farmers apply and receive loans,make savings as well as make payments.It is designed by taking into account the socio-economic characters of the users such as their disposable income and their illiteracy level. This platform provides service for two categories of users the farmers and the financial institutions/investors and they use either mobile or the web interface to access the farmers business performance.The mobile interface enables farmers to update their business records using USSD/SMS with any kind of phone while the investors and financial institutions accesses the platform using both the web and mobile interface.The platform will address the needs of my target audience by
1.Because of the the e- business manager enables farmers to remotely update production and financial records it will enable every registered farmer to have a real time business records.
2.The platform is embedded with applications that automatically analyses the farmers records to determine its business performance which thereby reduces their risk profile and makes them to become a viable loan recipients.
3.It will enable the farmers to have a true reflection of losses experienced in their farm business and to determine how much needed to indemnify them.
4.The integrated mobile money application will enable unbank farmers especially those in the rural areas to remotely apply for loans,make saving and as well receive payments and insurance payout.
5.The platforms real time analyses of farmers business performance enables financial institutions and insurance companies to save or reduce the cost of operations in managing farmers and helps them to have proper understanding of farming.
Define three specific objectives that you would like to achieve with your proposal.
The Specific Objectives that i will like to achieve with my proposal are
1.To make Farm business easy to evaluate by Investors,Farm Managers and Financial Institutions.
2.Creating access to credit for unbanked rural farmers while reducing their risk profile.
3.Making farming and Agricultural business easy to understand.
What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
A World Bank 2016 report found that “half of working Nigerians are in smallholder farming” but this group accounts for the “poorest 40 percent of the population compared to only 17 percent of wage workers.”Poverty among small-scale farmers is due to myriad of problems including low use of mechanization, poor agricultural extension systems, poor road networks, inadequate market information, and lack of access to credit and quality inputs such as fertilizer and seed.Majority of smallholder farmers in Nigeria find it difficult to access financial credit needed to boost their agricultural activities because of lack of information on the farmers business transaction leading to the financial institution inability to measure the farmers risk.These institutions rarely approve loans to smallholder farmers or have a slow turnaround time for approval, preventing farmers from getting capital when they need it in the agricultural cycle.Also the insurance companies also find it difficult to evaluate farmers business loss and as well as indemnify them in time after any loss due to their inability to access timely information on the farmers business performance.Also these Smallholders farmers in Nigeria and in Africa rely on savings to finance their agricultural activities and to mitigate the risk of crop failure. While a majority of smallholder farmers see the importance of setting money aside for key agricultural expenses—most notably fertilizer, seeds, pesticides, and equipment—their savings are too small to finance all of their priorities,In the other hand, Banks risk appetites are declining as a result of the global contraction of financial markets.The cost to serve Agricultural-Smes or Farmers is expected to increase due to covid-19 restrictions,as banks need to reach rural farmers while adhering to safety measures.Also Agri-Sme loans in Africa are already 22% higher-cost and has historically been expensive and difficult for Agri-SMEs and farmers to access than loans in the other regions, and this pandemic is likely to further dissuade banks from lending as they will become more risk averse.Chronic lack of access to long term financing means that women-led Agricultural businesses and farmers are particularly vulnerable; previous economic recessions have shown that they are much less likely to survive such a crisis. For many Agricultural-Smes and farmers, the covid-19 crises is an existential threat, findings from USAID-Sponsored ACDI/VOCA survey in Honduras found that 83% of enterprises will close their operations within three months if the situation does not change. The survival of the crises will be heavily dependent on their balance sheet. The Agricultural-Smes or farmers are most vulnerable as they are already under-capitalized,smaller or less established business that will continue to struggle to find formal financing. They tend to be in more remote areas, which makes it more difficult for them to access and complete loan assessments even without restrictions on movement. The fast and dramatic-impact of the months of the pandemic have eaten up any reserves of cash in the farmers business, thereby making future loan application difficult. These are the business that urgently need liquidity in order to keep their operations going and keep food moving through the system. RaebConnect will provide a platform for a more effective way of evaluating an Agricultural businesses by Investors and Financial institutions while applying social distancing as well as providing a convenient way for farmers to receive loans, pay merchants for goods, procure inputs and receive insurance payout.By so doing it will help decrease the financial institution operational cost of monitoring and keeping record on farmers performance.It will lower farmers risk profile making them more attractive loan recipients and thereby eliminates the challenges experienced by farmers in accessing finance for business growth. It also help to address illiteracy issues among the farmers and provide advisory role to farmers which will help them manage their business properly
What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?
RaebConnect is developing a web and mobile application that will record farmers production and financial records using registered freelance extension agents and QR codes to uniquely identify farmers and capture all there transactions.The platform is enabled with GPS application which helps in automatically allocating registered freelance extension agents to farmers closer to them in any location in Nigeria.The platform is enabled to automatically analyse the farmers production and financial records using our dedicated accounting applications to a form that will be used for informed decision making.It is integrated with USSD and mobile money application which allows the farmer to remotely update his business records, receive loans,insurance payouts,make payments and savings.These application is feasible because currently in Nigeria the ratio of an extension agent to a farmer in Nigeria is between 1:5000 to 1;10,000 with over 7000 workforce and currently with the federal government N-Power initiative the extension agent workforce is expected to be over 150,000.Our Platform will enhance the efficiency of these freelance extension agents to effectively carry their work effectively.Because of the well structured system of this extension agents across the 776 local government of Nigeria it becomes easy to get them register in our platform and automatically allocate them to farmers with a ratio 1;100.We expect to have 50,000 extension agents register in our platform and 5000,000 farmers to use our platform for updating their business records.These farmers will be able to USSD codes to carry out this operations because it does not require an Android phone to carry this out,it can be enabled using any kind of phone.
Share your story (your narrative)
As a young graduate of Agric Economics and Financial Management.I developed Passion for farming and Agriculture,which i took with to national youth service program me in Benue State Nigeria in 2009.I served as an Agricultural teacher were i worked to raise fund for one of my passionate Agricultural business in rice production,but unfortunately i was owed for 9 months.I searched for fund for the rice project but could not get any.I returned home in 2010 after 6 months of waiting and searching for fund to start a farming business ,i got a work with an Asset Management Company as a business manager.Because of the strong desire of running an Agricultural business,i resigned from the establishment after 3 months and used N12,000 or $33 which my sister gave me for investment to process grant from FADAMA a world bank assisted grant.It took 4 years for the grant to come and for me to establish my first Agricultural business which is in livestock production .The grant was used to setup the business facility such as the poultry pen but was not enough as working capital for the business to kick off.I decided to source for fund through the financial institutions but could not succeed because my business do not have any business track record ,there was no means of accessing my business so it became difficult to asses loan.I was able to kick start my business through a personal savings.I had to train myself through entrepreneurship development institute on Agricultural business management and development .With this experience i formed RAEB RESOURCES AND CONSULTANCY in 2013 which is an on sight consultancy service for rural farmers farmers under the IFAD/CBNRMP/FGN projects in Abia State Nigeria were we taught them on how to keep business records,improve on business performance and create access to finance that will suit there business objectives.We discovered the basic problem experienced by livestock and crop farmers which has affected their productivity and income to be poor business record keeping.We were only able to serve few farmers,which led us to think about the best way to reach as many farmers as well.This led to the idea of leveraging on technology to maintain farmers production and financial records. RaebConnect was bathed to digitally maintain farmers production and financial records as well as analyse this data for informed decision by the farm managers,insurance companies and financial institutions.
Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.
Business Model:
RaebConnect adopts two models in delivering our services to farmers,they include the stand-alone model were we target independent farmers and the out-growers model were we target contract farmers.We will be integrated with financial institutions loan platform which will permit any farmer for loan application to subscribe for our services before any loan application.It will also enable us to provide farmers information on various Agric loans available.Its partnership with financial institutions like the banks and insurance companies provides a leverage for the business to scale up fast and to service the needs of our customers efficiently. It also helps in reducing the farmers risk profile and making them credible loan recipients.
Revenue Model:
We adopt an indirect revenue model were the users of this information such as investors,insurance companies and financial institutions pays for the service provided for the farmers.We will charge 0.5-2% on every agricultural loans granted to independent farmers from our platform and 5% of insurance premium of farmers with agricultural insurance policy of insurance companies which have both subscribed for our services.We will also charge a service fee of N 100 or $3 on out growers for extension advisory services and a subscription fee of $30 on quarterly basis for accessing their farmer’s performance details.We will also charge a subscription fee of N 500 or $1.39 per farmer on monthly bases to enable them update and access their business records.We will also derive revenue of N 5 each time a USSD is used by a farmer to update his business records. We will also derive revenue from commission on amount paid or received through our mobile money application.We expect to have 250,000 farmers to adopt our innovation in the first year of operation which will yield an average of N 125 million or $347,000 monthly or $4.16 million annually from farmers subscription alone.
Market Size:
My target customers are the farmers and the financial institutions.The farmers will depend on this platform to keep and maintain their farm records,get advisory service on how to run a profitable agricultural venture and gain access to bank loans.The financial institutions depends on our platform to access farmers performance and understand the farmers properly.The farmers target customers includes people of different adult ages,gender with low and average educational level and they are spread all over the region.The market size for the service is huge with agricultural sector worth over 500 billion Nair a and Nigeria can boost of a population of over 160 million with 80 million being farmers while the financial institution has 22 commercial banks and over 400 micro-finance banks with an average of N118.99 billion disbursed as loan to over 646,213 farmers in 2018.The mobile market have shown that global mobile app market is now worth nearly $25 billion with Nigeria having 110 million subscribers.We expect to have an addressable market of 250,000 farmer in the first year of operation.
Competition/Competitive Advantage:
My competitor includes FarmCrowdy,ThriveAgric,Verdent AgricTech situated in NIgeria.AgroSpace in cameroun,Farmerline and AgroCenta in Ghana.others include e-fresh and cash2crop..They are digital platform that enables an extension worker provide advisory service and facilitates transactions between the contract farmers and the Out-growers as well as enables small holder farmers in the rural area to receive digital payments and build financial identity.All these competitors have one thing in common and creates similar value to the same target beneficiaries by using digital platform to connect smallholder farmers to investors,market,practical extension delivery and improved farm inputs .By doing so they maintain the financial and production records of the farm business. They chose this model because the farm owner will not effectively manage the farm investors fund.Registered farmers with contracts from offtakers are bankable because the can access finance due to digital record keeping,proof of sale record,financial history as well as tracked payments from their offtakers.These approach is limited the a small percentage of farmers and has not been able to capture stand alone farmers and as well connect them to institutional loans and funds. FarmCrowdy is the leading digital agriculture platform that has up to 7000 farmers and over 1000 investors in its platform.There uniqueness just like other competitors is that they adopt a split system for generating revenue were the private investors gets principal plus 40%,farmers 40% and 20% for FarmCrowthy giving investors good returns on investment.It adopts referral code reward system were people get rewarded for bringing investors.There weakness are inability of investors to ascertain farmers performance before investing,High investment risk for investors and lack of guarantee for farmers business continuity .RaebConnect is unique and has competitive advantage over it competitors because
1.The quality of alternative data and performance indicators and our experienced partnership we are using in relation to our niche market sets us apart from our competitors.
2.RaebConnect was founded based on the founders’ lived experiences as a consultant and member of smallholder farming communities.This experience makes RaebConnect unique and suited to meet the needs of smallholder farmers in Nigeria and all over West Africa.None of our competitors targets rural farmers,agribusinesses and farmers they way RaebConnect does,as our platform automatically allows farmers to update their business records using USSD/SMS,uses QR codes to capture farmers transaction with agribusiness off-taker thereby giving them financial identity,generates performance indicators that suits our target beneficiary needs and a mobile money service that enables unbanked rural farmers to receive loans and payments.
3.RaebConnect took into account the socio-economic characteristics of the target users thereby making the platform user friendly.
4.It has a system of validating farmers updates through the use of our freelance extension agents who operates within a specified radius any were in Nigeria which gives it the ability for maximum reach to farmers.
5.It provides farmers access to both institutional and non-institutional sources of funding.
6.It provides a real time information on the performance of the farmers business.
7.Its partnership with financial institutions like the banks and insurance companies provides a leverage for the business to scale up fast and to service the needs of our customers efficiently. It also helps in reducing the farmers risk profile and making them credible loan recipients.
Marketing Strategy
We will adopt the following marketing strategy based on the level of literacy of our target customers.Our target customers includes the rural farmers,agricultural businesses and the financial institutions.We will adopt below the line face to face marketing strategy were we use field agents and service ambassadors at agricultural fairs and events to educate and create awareness to farmers on the value and how to use our service.We will also partner with agriculture organization with farmers contact list or farmers register or partners that has positive relationship with farmers or have dealt with these farmers community over the years.We will also advertise on social media and on special media program me on radio and TV and as well collaborate with agriculture related program me within the applicable countries.We tend to adopt a direct marketing approach with the financial institutions in these countries and as well partner with them in their agriculture program me.
Challenges
One of the major challenges that will be faces is maintaining the privacy of the farmers data collected.,and this will be mitigated through the following 1.The platforms data side will have an encryption to secure farmers sensitive data 2.Database firewalls will be deployed 3.Our data will be remotely backed up.
Your Final Proposal for challenge
yes
Hello Ikechukwu this is a good idea. I have a question, how are you going to verify that the information sent by the farmers are accurate and true?
Sincerely
Jaymer
Hello i see yyou're new here Anyway this is a small piece of advice My advice Start small and build momentum, Being a social entrepreneur can be very difficult, you are constantly in a field dominated by changing dynamics, you will often face business challenges, and you have to start small and build your enterprise from the ground up. You must be resilient, realistic, and passionate about your goals and the impact you are trying to achieve. To add to your solution, I am sharing with you questions from one of our trainings that can help in refining our ideas and projects What business model will you follow to implement this idea? What methodology or strategy will you use during different processes of implementing this idea? Which are the processes you have to go through until the finalization of the idea? What means or tools do you need to implement my idea? Which are your potential collaborators, investors? I honestly suggest that before you submit your idea or project, please and ask yourself these questions and even if you have submitted their project, do remember that we still have opportunity to refine our ideas and resubmit. I hope that you find this useful. Also, please create time and take the campus online trainings as the trainings are there to help campus members understand what it is to be an entrepreneur. Consider my idea vote and comment on it Let co create Thank you
Hi Ikechukwu,
Good idea. Does your platform, ensure privacy and confidentiality of the data of your clients?
Nice idea, however how do will you deal with the illiteracy level of predominant farmers to adopt this technology?
IKECHUKWU UMEZURUMBAThis is a very good initiative. i would like to know more about your internal Data protection polices and perhaps how you harness it wth the government policies
MR Ikechukwu,this is a good idea,please keep it up
Hello Ikechukwu, great idea. How do you guarantee the security of the data that you collect. All the very best!
Hello Ik, I'm so impressed with your entry that I have added a Vote. Please Check out Mila, https://cocreate.itu.int/post/3505540 and consider giving us a vote too. I however noticed a few things and would like to bring them to your attention:
1. You seem to have described the full intention of your product as reply to the MVP question (Minimum Viable Product/Solution). The point in an MVP implementation is a minimum implementation of your idea, for the purpose of testing and learning Customer/User behaviour.
2. You have sighted studies that date back to 2018 and even 2016, a deeper enquiry though would help you get more up to date statistics and help you make better decisions, as we all know that 2020 is a huge deviation from every expected trend.
Great work Man, Kudos!
Users tagged:
Kudos for this good initiative oga #Ikechukwu. i wanted to know if the farmer is bearing the cost for SMS while updating farm records
This is a great initiative. I think you should reconsider your pricing statements. Too much charges here and there especially when you are targeting the poor Nigerian farmers, you will scare them.
Hi Ikechukwu, great initiative though your project has a number of questions that need to be addressed. The first question is the use of USSD/SMS is that very viable compared to using mobile application? In terms of internet connectivity and digital literacy for farmers how do you intend to solve that?
Did you also do a research to find out if this is a problem worth solving and how are farmers solving it today?
All the best
You need to clearly define how the business will effectively work, for example what about when you have more 50,000 farmers signing up on the platform at the same range of time. Will be able to deploy freelancer that can cater for this numbers
Hi Mr Umezurumba,
Due to the literacy of farmers in a developing country like Nigeria, how do you sensitize farmers on how to use your tool.
Mr Ikechukwu this a good one but I will want to know how farmers can adopt this innovation?
Awesome idea! More insight on adoption is needful especially for the low-income farmers.
Well done!
By digital platform, did you mean a mobile application? If yes, how are you going to help those farmers that do not have smart phones (are using feature phones which doesn't have capacity to install applications)?
Users tagged:
Hi Ikechukwu,
Is a great idea, but I want to know, did you validate your idea with farmers? have you received feedback?
And how will they use it? For example in rural areas how will they have access to this.
Hello!
I really believe this is a great idea, do you have an MVP? Your idea could really be very scalable to Africa, some countries of Asia and LatinAmerica. Keep up the good work!
interesting concept. I believe a Ditch NGO called icco (https://www.icco-cooperation.org/en/) is using a tool from Simbuka to do some of this stuff towards MFIs. https://www.icco-cooperation.org/en/news/simb...n-smallholders/ probably worth checvking out
Nice initiative, How do you plan to safeguard people's data and privacy?
in addition to my previous comment, you also may want to have a look at Kuza One, as they are also providing a platform for smallholder farmers. https://www.kuza.one/
And have a look at our idea and vote for it of you like it: https://cocreate.itu.int/post/3496670
Well-done Ikechukwu, how are you going to ensure that your extension agents do not collect extra fees from farmers? Did you make provision in the sms for head office mobile number? How will the farmers have access to pictures taken by your agents to ensure it is their actual farm that is uploaded to your database? Is the QR code meant also available to the farmers?
Well-done Ikechukwu, how are you going to ensure that your extension agents do not collect extra fees from farmers? Did you make provision in the sms for head office mobile number? How will the farmers have access to pictures taken by your agents to ensure it is their actual farm that is uploaded to your database? Is the QR code meant also available to the farmers?
Status label added: Community feedback received
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.
Hi Ikechukwu this idea of your is a very good idea, How soon do you think ut would take you to deploy it
Hi Ikechukwu this idea of yours is a very good idea, How soon do you think it would take you to deploy it.
Hi, you need to pay more attention on providing critical details about your MVP. How feasible is this? Describe the mechanisms behind it. State how exactly it will address the needs of your target audience. Explain why such a solution hasn't been implemented in your community.
You are running out of time. Refine your idea (by pressing the edit button) based on all the feedback you received. Inform me once you have done that. I'll provide the expert feedback so that you can complete the final submission form.
Remember challenge ends on 31 Aug (Monday).
Users tagged:
Status label added: Mentor feedback received
Explain why and how your MVP is unique compared to the similar ones in your community. Start working on your final documents.
Users tagged:
Status label added: Expert feedback received
Status label added: Submission completed
Status label added: Idea under jury review
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.