Farmcrowdy, Nigeria’s first and leading digital agriculture platform which allows Nigerians to venture in and sponsor agriculture, today announced the launch of 7,500 acres of new maize and rice farms in Nigerian states, Kaduna and Kwara.
Kaduna will see the cultivation of 5,000 acres of maize by 2,000 new Farmcrowdy farmers, while Kwara will witness 2,500 acres of rice being cultivated by over 1,000 direct rice farmers. This increase in land officially more than doubles the acreage of the agritech startup, which at the end of 2017, had cultivated 4,000 acres of farmland across 8 states in Nigeria.
As previously reported Farmcrowdy closed a seed funding of $1 million from international and local investors and also recently announced a $325,000 grant from the GSMA as part of the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund.
Since its launch in 2016, Farmcrowdy has empowered over 3,000 small scale-farmers across Nigeria. As a result of the new acquisition of land, 3,000 new direct farmers have been onboarded; demonstrating the startup’s ongoing commitment to building a community model that continues to empower local farmers and positively impact the lives of these farmers and their families, while also boosting food production and sustainability for Nigerians.
Farmcrowdy continues to gain momentum, having raised 321,000 organic chickens with a mortality of less than 4% on its poultry farm cycles to date, and recording 6,170 farm units being sponsored by approximately 1,000 unique farm sponsors from Nigerians in Nigeria, the US, Canada and the UK.
Onyeka Akumah, Co-Founder and CEO of Farmcrowdy says, “Today’s announcement is such an incredible landmark for us. We have been fervently working towards scaling up our operations across the country and these 7,500 additional acres of rice and maize farms, will allow us to do just that. We’re eager to see continued advanced growth in other crops including poultry in the near future; but at this point, we are particularly looking forward to welcoming on our platform more farm sponsors and followers locally and globally, as we continue to redefine the dynamics of farming and agriculture for not only Nigeria, but eventually Africa.”
Farmcrowdy launched its mobile app in November 2017 and has marked 50,000 unique downloads from agriculture enthusiasts. The startup has also announced the introduction of two new features to its app – The Agric Square, a forum aimed at bringing together agriculture enthusiasts, thought leaders and experts in a real-time exchange of ideas and views and advice on the sector, and secondly a redesigned blog with expanded functionality.
According to Jimoh Maiyegun who is a Co-Founder & CTO of Farmcrowdy, “We are genuinely elated by the breakthroughs we continue to make as a company, and continue to explore ways to bring agriculture enthusiasts along with us on this ongoing journey. These developments with our app are poised to foster even more engagement with followers and sponsors, as we provide first-hand experience of the agriculture sector”.
