Fintech empowering rural farmers through technology

Intuitively, large-scale agriculture might seem like the easiest solution to feeding the world’s fast growing population, but this would be somewhat short-sighted. Smallholder farmers, who produce around one-third of the world’s food, actually play an important part in supporting rural economies.

Unfortunately, however, small farmers are struggling, not least to access markets, lack of information on what is being produced and inexistent monitoring of the quality of their produce.

A fintech start-up, E-source Farm application (eSus), is on a mission to bridge the information gap by providing farmers with information about climate change, among other vagaries facing farmers.

Speaking to the media during the launch in Kampala, International University of East Africa (IUEA) Vice Chancellor Prof Akaezuwa Emeka says since the country is in the process of adopting technology and innovation, farming must be one of the sectors which needs more emphasis.

“Smallholder farmers are key to tackling the food security issues the world is facing, but they are also increasingly facing barriers to profitability. We have realised that agriculture contributes the biggest percentage to the country’s economy but farmers are still facing challenges with climate change due to lack of efficient information. That is why we have introduced an online platform for farmers to access information,” Emeka says.

Currently, it is possible to forecast food production in commercial farms. This is partly because there is enough data on what commercial farmers are doing on their farms.

It is, however, impossible to do this for the smallholder sector precisely because there is no data. eSus Farm is bringing precision farming to the smallholder sector.

Prof Emeka adds that they have engaged more students in technology and innovation to save the country from air pollution which results into climate change.

“The programme for technology and innovation is very effective and needs support from people who are interested in saving farmers. People need to see what we are doing and how the farmers will benefit from our different innovations,” he adds. 

Prof Emeka explains that E-source Farm application will enable farmers to showcase their product and get updated information about farming using mobile phones, because smallholder farmers do not have access to the available markets and the middlemen are buying their products at a very low cost.

“It’s not easy for farmers to access regional markets from their respective areas without any support that is why we have come up with the platform that will help them to  reach more people faster and cheaper because they do not have to pay to be on plat form,” he says.

The application is initially available on Airtel network by dialling *222# and since its still on pilot mode very soon it will be on other platforms starting with next years.

Resource fund

One of the students from IUEA Mohammed Hassan Ahmed says through the university, they have introduced technological initiatives to save smallholders farmers who are financially unstable.

He says the youth needs to embrace technology and innovation because it has helped the young generation to plan for their future instead to graduating and start looking for jobs.

“Since we do not have funds to support farmers we have created a technology of electric tractor that will enable smallholder farmers to benefit from technology because it is one of the challenges they face. Smallholders farmers do not have financial resources to buy and use advanced technology but they can manage to hire these advanced machines so that they increase production,” he says

Hassan adds that electric tractors will help to reduce the greenhouse gases that are littered into the environment.

Briefly

eSus Farm is an agri-fintech that specialises in tracking and providing advanced agricultural statistical data to smallholder farmers and the entire agri-value chain for the purpose of increasing agricultural productivity, smallholder market and credit access, and the overall efficiency of the agri-value chain.