Pivo Africa has partnered with Farmz2u to provide smallholder farmers in Nigeria access to financial services on its Farming Management Platform.
There is an abundance of statistics about the agricultural sector in Nigeria pointing to why the sector should have more access to finance. Still, the sector continues to deal with issues ranging from low budget allocations to the inability of farmers to get financing to maintain and grow their operations.
In addition to the already existing challenges, there is growing food insecurity with 10% of the country’s population projected to face famine in 2022. To combat this, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (alongside other measures) recommends the prioritisation of smallholder agriculture and structural changes to how financing is distributed.
Farmz2U is an agritech company providing data and resources to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to help them earn profitably. Farmz2U utilises its Farming Management Platform (FMP), a web application, that supports farmers from pre-farming to post-harvest with digital extension services and market access, as well as an agri-virtual simulation game. Since its launch in 2019, Farmz2U has registered over 2,000 farmers from Nigeria and Kenya in its network. In 2020, the company assisted farmers to achieve a $100 annual increase in farming income. In February 2022, Farmz2U was selected to participate in a one-year agrifoodtech investment readiness programme hosted by Endeavor South Africa.
With this partnership, more farmers within the Farmz2U network can leverage the credit available to them through Pivo Capital to scale their operations. The farmers will also have access to other financial services like cash management and insurance. “By supporting smallholder farmers to increase productivity and income, we believe the impact of their growth will be felt not only within the agricultural sector but in other agro-reliant industries and down the value chain,” Pivo’s CEO, Nkiru Amadi-Emina says.