- ThriveAgric’s recently released 2022 Impact Report highlights impressive growth and achievements driven by strengthened internal operations and strategic partnerships.
- The company aims to provide $500 million in credit to 10 million smallholder farmers across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya by 2027, leveraging their Agricultural Operating System (AOS) to ensure effective utilization of the provided credit.
- ThriveAgric has implemented initiatives and partnerships to increase women and youth impact, democratize the use of AOS, bridge the financing gap for smallholder farmers, and promote sustainable agricultural practices through knowledge-sharing and personalized data-driven advice.
ThriveAgric, in its recently released 2022 Impact Report, showcased remarkable growth and achievements fueled by key strategies and partnerships.
The company’s internal operational process has been strengthened, with a talented team driving the progress. By identifying individuals with domain expertise in the agricultural value chain, risk management, and agric-finance, ThriveAgric has ensured a solid foundation for growth.
In this interview with Nairametrics, Uka Eje, CEO of ThriveAgric, speaks on the company’s ambitious goal of $500 Million in Credit for 10 million Smallholder Farmers by 2027, collaborations and the positive impact of their operations, among others.
Nairametrics: Your 2022 Impact Report revealed some impressive growth and achievements for ThriveAgric. What key strategies and partnerships have contributed to this success?
Uka Eje: We have continually strengthened our internal operational process and our team has been a key booster for that growth. As such, we are able to identify talents with domain experience in the agricultural value chain, Risk and Agric-finance. Because of our desire to scale, technology has also played a significant role in our growth. We have been able to deploy our own Agricultural Operating System (AOS) to gain better efficiency in all our operations and scale our productivity holistically and sustainably.
Also, we effectively collaborated with reputable entities like USAID Funded – West Africa Trade and Investment Hub, Visa, Heifer International, and OCP Africa, among others, whose partnerships have had a positive impact on our operations.
Nairametrics: ThriveAgric said it aims to provide $500 million in credit to 10 million smallholder farmers across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya by 2027. How do you plan to achieve this ambitious goal, and what measures are in place to ensure the effective utilisation of the provided credit?
Uka Eje: One of the key successes of AOS is that we are able to democratise its use beyond ThriveAgric operations, creating solutions for other agricultural or intending agricultural institutions across the continent. With this, they can leverage the software to access credit, monitor uptake as well as track inventory upon harvest.
Our goal is to make agriculture in Africa a less complex ecosystem for actors to play, especially financial institutions and we believe that the AOS is capable of helping us achieve this.
With the AOS, utilisation of funds can be tracked end-to-end from when a farmer is given seeds for planting to fertiliser application, field monitoring up until harvest and eventual offtake from storage facilities. That level of transparency and tracking is what the AOS is solving today.
Nairametrics: The 2022 impact report highlighted a significant increase in the number of women impacted and an increase in youth impact in communities. Could you elaborate on the initiatives or programs that have led to this positive outcome?
Uka Eje: Women & youth participation is at the core of our work at ThriveAgric. Over the last two years, we have partnered with USAID Funded – West Africa Trade and Investment Hub and Heifer International to increase the participation of women in our network by over 50,000.
The milestones from these projects have seen yields of these categories of farmers increased by nearly 3x the national average thereby positively impacting their earnings.
Nairametrics: Access to funding is a critical challenge for smallholder farmers in Africa. How does ThriveAgric address this issue, and what specific strategies are implemented to provide input financing and data-led advisory to improve farmers’ output?
Uka Eje: Rightly said, financing is still a critical challenge for smallholder farmers in Africa – specifically finding the right financing structure that’s best suited for the agriculture space is even more of a challenge. Over the last 6 years, we have put a lot of effort into solving this problem.
So far, we have been able to provide digital financial identity to these farmers which helps us build up credit worthiness for the farmers. Without this, it would be difficult to access funds from any financial institution.
We are also working with commercial banks and building the right partnerships with input providers to help provide the services these farmers need. The result of all these strategies is to help ThriveAgric to bridge the financing gap for these smallholder farmers.
In addition to this, we have onboarded over 2000 extension agents on the field who reside in the same communities as the farmers to monitor the activities of the farmers and provide extension services geared towards increasing the farmers’ yield.
Nairametrics: Let’s talk more about the impact report. You mentioned that ThriveAgric is leveraging its Agricultural Operating Software (AOS) to provide access to loans for farmers. Could you tell us more about this software and the specific benefits it brings to farmers and partner organizations?
Uka Eje: The Agricultural Operating System (AOS) is a proprietary software that has helped us scale our operations across Nigeria. When we started working with farmers 6 years ago, we realised quickly that it would be difficult to scale without technology.
The AOS has helped us build a network of over 500,000 farmers in a transparent and seamless manner that connects them to the right financing. With the AOS, we are able to onboard farmers, map their fields and collect essential data we use to make informed decisions like determining the right amount of inputs for their unique farms as well as the right advisory to help improve the farmer’s yield.
The AOS helps farmers get the right inputs in the form of seeds, fertilisers and crop protection products and upon harvest the AOS also helps these farmers get access to premium markets for their commodities, eliminating the numerous middlemen that plague the selling process while affording the farmers the best value for their product.
Using the AOS has helped us at ThriveAgric to double farmers’ income and triple their productivity, helping them feed their families and giving their children the right education. With the AOS, partner organisations are able to gain access to verifiable data that can help them make data-driven investment decisions, ultimately derisking investments in the agritech space.
Nairametrics: Given your plan to expand into Tanzania, Egypt, and Zambia, how do you envision ThriveAgric’s role in alleviating potential food security challenges in these regions?
Uka Eje: Oh yes, our vision and desire as a team is to build an Africa that feeds itself and the world and our actions would always align with this vision. We have studied closely and found that as much as many African countries share unique agriculture challenges, one key denominator is the urgent need to alleviate food insecurity across the continent and to ensure that food is abundant regardless of seasons. Our aim is to provide $500 million in credit to 10 million smallholder farmers across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and eventually other regions by 2027.
To achieve this, we would work with key stakeholders in the value chain in these respective countries as we have successfully done in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. We would also scale the adoption of the AOS amongst agriculture enthusiasts and make it a lot more efficient whilst positioning it to solve the key problems within these regions.
Nairametrics: As an impact-driven company, what are ThriveAgric’s key priorities and strategies to ensure sustainability and long-term positive social and environmental impact?
Uka Eje: At ThriveAgric, the sustainability of our operations and the impacts that come with it is what keeps us going. We have implemented a few initiatives so far. We have introduced our farmers to agroforestry to help our drive for sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices. We have a dedicated team of extension workers who provide technical training & capacity building programmes to farmers to facilitate this.
Because of our farmer-obsession objective, we consistently deploy various programs that help improve the well-being of our farmers and increase the attractiveness of our operations in their communities. We’re currently working on a project in partnership with Healthtracka to administer cervical cancer medication to our female farmers and we have piloted with the first set of 1,000 women.
Through numerous partnerships, we have also ensured that gender inclusion and social inclusion are enforced. We make this happen by ensuring that female farmers and youths are financed and our goal has been to grow these numbers significantly. Alongside this, we have created cooperative groups (leveraging our cluster model) where these farmers can have access to soft financial instruments from financial institutions by which they can take on lasting projects to better their lives.
Nairametrics: Sustainable agricultural practices are mentioned as part of ThriveAgric’s approach. Could you elaborate on the specific initiatives or strategies implemented to encourage and support smallholder farmers in adopting sustainable practices?
Uka Eje: At ThriveAgric, we are intentional about encouraging farming to sustainable agricultural practices. For example, we have a knowledge-sharing initiative called the Farmer Monthly Congress. The goal of the training is to equip farmers with good knowledge of good agricultural practices (GAP).
We also use personalised data to provide farmers with advice on how to improve their yields and profits while also minimising their environmental impact. For example, we collect and analyse soil data, weather patterns, and crop yields, which we then use to generate recommendations for farmers on the best planting and harvesting practices.
In addition to the initiatives mentioned above, we also partner with other organisations to promote sustainable agriculture. For example, ThriveAgric works with the World Food Programme (WFP) to implement the ThriveAgric pilot project in Nigeria. This project is helping to train and support smallholder farmers in adopting sustainable agricultural practices.
