Thirty-nine-year-old Ishola Adelakun held up the palm of his hands to show how soft they were.
In Nigeria, how coarse the palm is, is often a measure of how physically “hardworking” one is.
For a farmer, the coarse palm is the symbol of strength and from it will issue the fountain of wealth or, as the case usually is, mere subsistence.
But Adelakun’s palms are not that of a farmer. His are ones that dance on computer keyboards all day long, turning hundreds of naira to thousands and thousands to millions.
As an investment banker with no knowledge or skills as far as agriculture is concerned, Adelakun believes that food sufficiency is important for the survival of a country with a burgeoning population.
But he has no land he could use for agriculture and his primary job does not give him time to focus on it even if he indeed gets the land.
“I envy people involved in agricultural production,” Adelakun said.
According to him, if he had the chance to choose another field of endeavour, he would not think twice before going fully into agriculture.
“I always wonder why Nigeria has yet to fully explore agriculture to make it the mainstay of our economy,” he said.
But for Adelakun, the opportunity came when he learnt that he could become a farmer in the comfort of his home by simply sitting behind his computer.
He never has to go to a farm nor use his hands to till the ground yet, he found an outlet for his love for agriculture.
Adelakun joined FarmCrowdy and became a virtual farmer.
He is now one of over 1,700 Nigerians who have joined the platform, a start-up that provides an opportunity for people to become farmers without actually having a farm.
The platform is an agricultural innovation that matches actual farmers with farm enthusiasts who would like to sponsor actual farm productions and share the profit at the end of a season.
For someone like Adelakun, it was an opportunity to invest his money and also express his love for agriculture in concrete terms.
On the platform, a portion of maize farm is sponsored with N22,400 (about $71) with a return on investment of 23 per cent (N5,152) in six months. In other words, a sponsor gets N27,552 at the end of one planting cycle. A tomato farm is N44,000 with the same 23 per cent return in six months.
For poultry farm sponsors, a portion is N96,000 for a 20 per cent return in four months, while a cassava farm requires a N97,200 investment with 25 per cent return in one year.
But most sponsors go for the poultry farm, it was learnt.
Agriculture and land lying fallow
Despite the lower place that agriculture has been pushed in the country since crude oil became the country’s main foreign exchange earner, experts agree that it has to be raised back to the position of prominence it used to occupy in order to cater for the ballooning population.
According to the National Population Commission, Nigeria’s population currently stands at 182m. With the growth rate of three per cent, forecasts suggest the country’s population would be about 203.13m by the year 2020. In fact, a UN report states that by the year 2050, Nigeria would be the world’s third most populous country.
‘World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision’ suggests that by then, Nigeria would only be behind India and China in terms of population.
This is both good news and bad news in terms of food sufficiency and agricultural wealth, experts say.
Prof. Oladapo Dipeolu of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, explained that the situation could be worsened by the fact that little is being done to improve agricultural production for rural farmers despite the government’s lip service in the sector.
He said, “There are so many agricultural interventions that can be used to propel production. There are many people who want to be trained in agricultural enterprises. There are people who are unemployed who can be taught how to produce more food. For instance, there is hydroponic technology (growing plants without soil) with just a small land, you can grow vegetables.
“There are many technologies and business start-ups that the government should focus on. Many unemployed graduates would like to learn agricultural production as a vocation.”
People like Adelakun are the ones Prof. Dipeolu are talking about.
Innovations, technology changing lives
Over the last one decade, Nigeria has seen a rise in technology driven innovations which seek to address the country’s myriad of problems.
For instance, Andela, an education development start-up with focus on training developers, was founded in 2014.
With a target to train 100,000 developers over the next 10 years, the start-up even attracted the attention of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who visited the company during his 2016 visit to the country and helped it raise $24m in funding.
In the area of job hunting, some start-ups are also providing a unique service that seeks to address the country’s unemployment agony. The importance of the service rendered is reinforced by the fact that as of the third quarter of 2016, Nigeria’s unemployment rate stood at 13.9 per cent.
Also, e-commerce has become part of day-to-day life in Nigeria because a number of companies such as Konga, Jumia, Olx, have taken the bull by the horn to change the face of virtual trading in Nigeria.
There are many others like OneTracQ, a start-up on helping people to track belongings. GrouPower is another another start-up that provides reliable electricity by operating neighborhood solar farms.
Expanse of uncultivated land Vs food import bill
In the area of agriculture, few initiatives without government input, have come up to address the issue of food sufficiency in the country.
Unfortunately, while Nigeria depends heavily on import to meet the demand for food products such as rice and palm oil, a large expanse of agricultural land in the country remains uncultivated.
Out of Nigeria’s 91m hectares (910,770 sq. km) of land area, about 84m hectares of it are arable out which only 40m hectares are cultivated.
Despite this, food import bill sometimes rivals the country’s annual budget.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, Nigeria remains a food deficit country.
By 2016, Nigeria’s annual spending on food import stood at $22bn (about N6.9trn) according to the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri. In contrast, the country’s 2017 budget stands at N7.298tn
In the face of the magnitude of food import, Nigeria’s agricultural production in the areas of cultivation and animal husbandry continue to suffer as a result of lack of capacity of farmers in terms of agro-facilities and funding.
But with spare money, many young Nigerians like Adelakun are taking to agriculture in Nigeria, without having to worry about going to a farm physically.
For this generation of virtual farmers, nothing beats sitting behind your computer, while monitoring farms they have invested in.
One of such participants, Mrs. Ajike Sola-Adeniyi, explained that she had already invested in two farms in the past, the best way she could practise her love for agriculture.
Like Adeniyi, Mrs. Grace Ladipo, a Lagos resident did not allow the hustle and bustle of the city life and the hectic schedule of her work as a beautician stand in the way of the love she has for agriculture.
For her, the platform is the best option in a state where most of the available farmlands have been developed into residential areas.
She told Saturday PUNCH, “I don’t have a land and the truth is that the need for food is paramount. You can die from hunger but not from not having clothes.
“I realised when I heard of FarmCrowdy that I could do my work normally as a beautician and still get involved in agriculture. It was the perfect platform I needed.
“I believe that if I got involved, I could make some money aside my job. One cannot go wrong in any business that has to do with providing food. In the world we live in, it is necessary to have multiple streams of income. Now I can be a farmer behind my computer.”
Lagos-based digital marketer, Toyin Osebeyo, said it is exciting to simply sit at home waiting for the returns from his farm.
Osebeyo is also one of the virtual farmers on FarmCrowdy, who are referred to as sponsors.
He has put some of his savings in a maize farm and at the end of the season, he expects a return. For him, all he needs to know about how “his farm” is doing could be accessed by his computer.
“It makes me feel great that I could sit behind my computer and get involved in agriculture helping out the country in my little way,” he said.
But how does this work exactly?
Osebeyo registered on the platform as a sponsor and is matched with an actual farmer who owns a maize farm but needs funding to cultivate.
At the end of the season, he gets 40 per cent of the profit. Because each farm is insured, he gets his investment back in case of any mishap in the farming season, it was learnt.
“I am happy someone is getting a job because of me. Rather than let my extra cash sit in the bank, I could use it in agriculture,” Osebeyo said.
One of the farmers at the other end of the input of people like Osebeyo, is Aremu Omoniyi, who first discovered his love for animal husbandry by raising rabbits while in high school.
Six years ago, he dabbled into poultry and fish farming with 500 layers financed with a N400,000 personal savings and a N700,000 loan his wife helped him obtain from her place of work.
With the spectre of debt hanging over his head, the most devastating thing happened.
In 2011, one of the deadliest floods in South-West Nigeria in the last decade, brought about by a heavy downpour, swept through his poultry farm.
By the time the water receded, no bird was left in the farm. The fish tanks were empty.
“Everything went down the drain. Till today, I have not finished paying back the cooperative loan,” Omoniyi said.
Obtaining financial support from people, who are interested in agriculture was like an insurmountable mountain for Omoniyi.
As devastating as the flood which sunk his investment was, it has not quenched his love for animal husbandry.
But now, he is depending on the opportunity offered by technology to put his farm on the right course.
The Ogbomoso-born farmer said, “I did not think it was possible that I could get financial support from a total stranger. Technology has really helped us. In fact, the fact that someone is bringing money to the table has spurred me on to be committed the more.
“For us, the issue of funding is the biggest problem. We have the expertise, but getting people to invest in your endeavour by parting with their money is not easy at all.”
Innovation, answer to food sufficiency
Experts say platforms like this may be the answer to Nigeria’s food sufficiency.
An average Nigerian spends 73 per cent of her/his income on food and beverage, the Central Bank of Nigeria said.
Considering how vital that sub-sector is, Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, says an increasing investment in that direction lowers the cost of living drastically.
For Prof. Dipeolu, platforms such as the ones provided by these virtual farmers may be the answer in a country where the government only talks without doing.
The don said, “For instance, I work in a university of agriculture and one would think that the university would be given the right amount of fund to do researches to enhance technology, but no.
“What you see is that government is building roads in cities, rather than in the rural areas to allow farmers to get their produce to the markets.
“There is a need for practical attention to agriculture. Those who want to get involved in agriculture, whether you have a degree and skills or not can be part of it. With our population, we can have food sufficiency in the country but I don’t think the government is interested in that.”
Out of Nigeria’s huge uncultivated land, FarmCrowdy said it already has 1,287 acres of land available for agriculture, out of which 298 acres already have crops. FarmCrowdy farms currently exist in Oyo and Ogun states in Southwest Nigeria while sponsorship is open to all agriculture enthusiasts across the country. The platform says it aims to put 10,000 farmers to work. But the administrators hope for a wider reach.
“Our goal is to secure 10,000 hectares around the eastern parts of Nigeria and the Lakaji corridor in other to make use of dams and irrigation facilities in this region,” Co-founder of FarmCrowdy, Mr. Onyeka Akumah, said.
According to him, the platform started as an idea that came out of a personal experience.
“He said, “A friend of mine was into cassava farming and he was trying to raise money to sustain the farm for the next season. I tried getting people to invest in it but they did not really trust us.
“They wanted more information than we were giving and eventually, we could not raise enough money for him and the venture collapsed. I saw the business model and kept asking myself why people were not getting involved. I realised that the problem is trust, information and assurance that they would get their money back.
“What we set out to do is to educate the people about the benefits of getting involved in agriculture, allow them to get involved by sponsoring a farm and giving the farmer the input to go through a full season depending on the contract period with the farm sponsor.”
According to him, the long term target is increased food production in the country.
He said the problem of getting the farm produce to the markets has been solved as the platform has got uptakers involved to buy off the produce.
According to him, before any farmer signs on, a team visits the farm and assesses it before it is placed on the platform and makes it available to sponsors.
Akumah said, “We provide updates to the sponsors on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, we go to the farm to get pictures and videos on the farm, so that we can make that available to the sponsors and the followers. Either good or bad, you see what is going on in the farm.
“If they want to, they can arrange a visit to the farms. We have a partnership with an insurance company to insure the farms. So, part of the sponsorship the person is paying for is also the insurance, so that their capital is intact.”
FarmCrowdy was founded by the duo of Akumah, an e-commerce expert, with background in computer programming, and an agricultural consultant, AfricanFarmer Mogaji, who is now the Chief Operating Officer of the organisation.
Both are young Nigerians who said they have made food sufficiency in the country their life’s target.
Innovations are important for agricultural development – Agric Minister
Saturday PUNCH reached out the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, on the Federal Government’s support mechanism for innovations such as FarmCrowdy.
According to him, for agricultural development, private initiatives such as this, are essential.
His Special Adviser (Media), Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye, spoke on his behalf, explaining that the platform could get a wider support from the Federal Government.
He said, “This is a welcomed innovation. The ministry started its own innovation called the ‘e-wallet system’ few years ago, which has been not been abandoned but has been stalled because of the economy and the fact that states are not involved yet.
“To put in place a nationwide system, it is necessary for the states to be fully involved because they are the ones who would implement the scheme. If such an innovation can come up from the public service, much more is expected from the private sector.
“With the involvement of the ministry, I think this innovation could be played up. There is no doubt that the government cannot do everything in agriculture. States are the ones who have the powers to allocate land. So, they are better placed to work with these kinds of innovations. But this does not take away from the fact that the Federal Government can get invovled. It is an idea I would like to look into.
Punch
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