The initiative which aims to empower 125,000 smallholder farmers with financial inclusion access, further reiterates the company’s mission to build the largest network of profitable farmers across Africa while ensuring food security on the continent.

Over the next twelve months, ThriveAgric and its technical partners will facilitate the opening of bank accounts for 125,000 smallholder farmers across 8 northern states including Adamawa, Gombe, Yobe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, and Bauchi, giving them access to debit cards and other various financial services.

The Project will be in fulfilment of winning the 2022 edition of the annual Agriculture, Youth and Technology (AYuTe) Africa Challenge, an initiative of Heifer International.

In addition to employing over 200 young people to execute this project, ThriveAgric will also be providing 1,000 Point of Sale (POS) devices to selected Nigerian youths to boost and provide additional income to their families.

According to the EFInA Access to Financial Services Survey 2020, only 51% of Nigerian adults use formal financial services with women being continuously more excluded than men.

The report particularly highlights that large gaps in financial access remain for some of Nigeria’s most financially excluded groups with adults in Northern Nigeria significantly more financially excluded than those in the South of Nigeria.

Of this group, rural adults are even more excluded than those in urban areas and this translates to very limited access to funding or funding options.

ThriveAgric will therefore be approaching this project with a gender lens to ensure that at least 40% of the targeted beneficiaries in the 8 northern states of Nigeria, including smallholder farmers, POS operators and project employees are women.

Speaking on the company’s vision behind the AYuTe Project, Ayodeji Arikawe, Co-Founder at ThriveAgric, said:

“At ThriveAgric, our driving force has always been to empower smallholder farmers for a dignified livelihood. By connecting smallholder farmers to the formal financial economy, we are positioning them for better access to finance, credit, digital services and introducing them to the formal economy which has numerous other benefits in the long run. We are excited about this initiative we’re undertaking with Heifer International through the AYuTe Africa Challenge, and for the long term impact of this strategic partnership with VISA towards the creation of job opportunities, financial and social inclusion. Our unwavering commitment to positively impact smallholder farmers and their immediate communities across Africa will become even more evident through this project, as we power towards our goal of developing the largest network of profitable farmers in Africa.”

Last year, ThriveAgric emerged as the West African winners of the annual AYuTe Africa Challenge, receiving a $1m grant prize as reward. Organised by Heifer International, the Agriculture Youth Technology (AYuTe) Challenge was set up to support young entrepreneurs working to scale food security on the continent by developing and deploying affordable tech solutions to impact smallholder farmers. In addition to the cash grants, Heifer International also deploys a team of expert advisers and accomplished business veterans to support AYuTe Africa Champions as they translate this funding into business expansion strategies.

According to the Country Director of Heifer International, Rufus Idris, “Inadequate access to financial services is a key barrier limiting smallholder farmers from improving farming practices, adopting innovation and increasing their production outputs. We are excited about this opportunity to not only invest in ThriveAgric’s solutions but to scale up an agritech innovation that confronts financial inclusion challenges facing smallholder farmers in Nigeria”.

Access to funding remains one of the biggest challenges confronting smallholder farmers in Africa. According to WillAgri, only 10% of farmers have access to credit in rural areas across Sub-Saharan Africa.

By facilitating account opening, distribution of bank cards and setting up POS operators in the rural northern communities, ThriveAgric will be increasing access to formal financial services through digital tools thereby driving financial inclusion, a key promoter of access to finance and markets for more smallholder farmers.

Key partnerships with companies like Visa to reach the most financially excluded groups, a lot of whom are smallholder farmers, demonstrates how ThriveAgric will be leveraging strategic partnerships to attain the company’s ambition of providing $500 million in credit to 10 million smallholder farmers across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya by 2027.

Commenting on the innovative move, Ayodeji Alabi, Fintech Lead at Visa Inc. West Africa said, “We wish ThriveAgric well with this initiative to onboard over 125,000 farmers on the Financial Inclusion drive in Nigeria. With ThriveAgric as winners of the Visa Everywhere Initiative in 2022, they have our full support in this to facilitate payment solutions towards ensuring that underserved communities are banked.”

The AYuTe Project is yet another step in the right direction for ThriveAgric, as the company accelerates towards its goal of building an Africa that feeds itself.

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Announcing the winners in Lagos on Wednesday, November 30 at the Grand Finale of the keenly contested Challenge that saw well over 600 entries, the Country Director, Rufus Idris said the newly introduced annual challenge in Nigeria serves as a springboard for identifying outstanding young agritech innovators, as well as assisting in the formation of strong partnerships.

As a result, the competition will increase visibility for growth and improve smallholder farmers’ productivity.

Ifeoluwa Olatayo, the Managing Director, Soupah Farm-en-Market Limited emerged the grand prize winner for the maiden edition of AYuTe ‘s competition in Nigeria having met all requirements to get the topmost position. She got $10,000 grants as the overall best at the conclusion of Heifer Africa AYuTe’s Challenge to expand her business initiatives in the agriculture value chain.

The second runner’s -up, Rejoice Usim, the Chief Executive of Simkay Foods Limited got $6,000, while Stephen Obe, the CEO of Evet Technology got $4,000 grants to emerge the third place winner.

The winner, Olatayo described the impact of her innovation at Soupah Farm-en-Market Limited thus: “Basically, we connect rural smallholder farmers to urban markets by using short code as a procurement interface. So, rural smallholder farmers will no longer market agriculture produce through middlemen – they will communicate with us directly to collect their produce while we sell to large off takers. Majorly, we are improving the livelihood of the smaller farmers because we buy their farm produce at better prices of about 50% higher than the typical traditional markets”.

She urged youths to engage and think of how to use technology to better the lots of young farmers and boost food production and supply. “I encourage other youth techies to look for those problems within the agriculture industry and solve them with the use of technology to scale faster and grow bigger”,

“The grant will majorly be a benefit to our local farmers. It will also create a supply chain system for them in terms of purchase, storage and selling in a way that it makes them make higher profits than they are making at the moment” she said.

The national competition represents a new phase of Heifer International’s AYuTe Africa Challenge, established in 2021 to award cash grants annually to the most promising young agritech innovators from across Africa. Like the Regional Champions competition, the AYuTe National Champions competition offers prize money and mentorship, helping translate the energy and ideas of young Nigerian agritech innovators into meaningful impact for smallholder farmers across the country, and supporting winners to grow their businesses and profile.

“More than half of our population consists of young people and with inflation skyrocketing, fueled mainly by food inflation, we’ll need the youths with energy, tech-savvy, and entrepreneurial skills that can be channeled to transform the agricultural sector,” said Rufus Idris, Country Director, Heifer Nigeria.

Presenting the awards and the grant to the finalists, Heifer Nigeria’s Country Director, Rufus Idris, said that “We are excited to announce a starting cash grant of $20,000 to the most promising young agritech innovator in Nigeria. This is in line with Heifer’s strategic goal of unleashing the hidden agricultural treasures among African youths.

“We strongly believe that the new ideas and technologies by this Africa’s tech-savvy youths discovered in this competition will help to convert the huge potential in agriculture to economic growth and employment across Africa while transforming the sector.

“Through this challenge, we hope to further inspire the Nigerian youth population to continue to embrace agriculture as a career option of choice, while promoting creative professionals that are using technology to re-imagine farming and food production across the country”, said Idris at the close of the competition.

Since 1944, Heifer International has worked with more than 39 million people around the world to end hunger and poverty in a sustainable way. Working with rural communities in 21 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, Heifer International supports farmers and local food producers to strengthen local economies and build secure livelihoods that provide a living income.

The event brought together stakeholders within the ecosystem including government representatives, tech hubs and agripreneurs, who are relevant to supporting the development and scale-up of innovative, commercially viable and sustainable agricultural technologies, capable of transforming Nigeria’s agricultural sector and her food security.

The keynote speaker and Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms .Abiola Olusanya who was represented by the Director of Agriculture Training Institute, Mr Emmanuel Fatai Audu, said that “At every point in time, there is always a demand for food in Lagos State. Food worth N9 billion is consumed every day. If we can expand that across Nigeria and Africa, that tells you the immense potential that the food value chain brings to the table in terms of economic gains to value chain outburst, especially our youths here today. He encouraged the youths to go into Agriculture as it is the next oil.

The post Heifer Announces Three Nigerian AgriTech Innovators as AYuTe Africa Challenge Winners appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The challenge will be coming to an end with three finalists competing for the grand prize on November 30th at Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The AYuTe (Agriculture Youth and Technology) Africa Challenge serves as a springboard for identifying outstanding young agritech innovators in various Heifer countries, as well as assisting in the formation of strong partnerships.

As a result, the competition will increase visibility for growth and improve smallholder farmers’ productivity.

Through a regional competition, Heifer International awards up to US$1.5 million each year to leading agritech innovators across Africa

National competitions in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda also award up to $20,000 in each country.

The AYuTe Africa Challenge Nigeria is an opportunity to identify young, creative entrepreneurs who have launched promising new tech solutions to transform African agriculture for smallholder farmers.

The grand finale, themed “Envisioning Agricultural Development in 2030,” will be held at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos where the winners of the 2022 AYuTe Nigeria Challenge will be awarded a total cash prize of Twenty Thousand US Dollars ($20,000).

The national competition represents a new phase of Heifer International’s AYuTe Africa Challenge, established in 2021 to award cash grants annually to the most promising young agritech innovators from across Africa.

Like the Regional Champions competition, the AYuTe National Champions competition offers prize money and mentorship, helping translate the energy and ideas of young Nigerian agritech innovators into meaningful impact for smallholder farmers across the country, and supporting winners to grow their businesses and profile.

“More than half of our population consists of young people and with inflation skyrocketing, fueled mainly by food inflation, we’ll need the youths with energy, tech-savvy, and entrepreneurial skills that can be channeled to transform the agricultural sector,” said Rufus Idris, Country Director, Heifer Nigeria.

“The national competition in Nigeria has been initiated as an enterprise development program to further identify, nurture and support innovative, relevant and technology-driven Agri-centric enterprises to grow, scale and thrive,” Idris said.

Each year, Heifer International invests more than $1.5 million to accelerate digital agriculture entrepreneurship in Africa as a transformative force tagged AYuTe.

More about Heifer International

Since 1944, Heifer International has worked with more than 39 million people around the world to end hunger and poverty sustainably.

Working with rural communities across Africa for 48 years, Heifer International supports farmers and local food producers to strengthen local economies and build secure livelihoods that provide a living income.

The post Three Finalists Jostle for AYuTe Africa Challenge Nigeria Grand Prize appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.