According to data obtained by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), by the year 2050, the world population is expected to increase to 9 billion, which may lead to massive famine unless the global food production is increased by 70 percent.

At the same time, some of the factors affecting the agriculture industry are labor shortages, increasing costs of production food waste, and land management inefficiencies. Agtech startups around the world are developing innovative solutions to tackle these challenges and Africa is not left behind.

Ajebor Farmers, a leading AgTech startup in Nigeria is encouraging agro-investment using agricultural networking and sharing best practices to finance agriculture in Nigeria. Nigerian rural farmers seeking to scale and enlarge their farms are financed by Ajebor Farmers, who in turn get some percentage of the profit made at the end of the farming cycle. It is a win-win situation.

In a recent chat with the CEO of Ajebor Farmers https://ajeborfarmers.com, Victor Oyita, he spoke extensively on their business model, how they are financing agriculture and solving the food problem in Nigeria using technology.

What is the story behind the name Ajebor Farmers?

As young people, the majority of us abhor agriculture because of how crude it can be. Growing up as a young person, I never loved going to my parent's farm because the process was tedious and boring. So, I never in my life thought I'd be a farmer until I saw the opportunities it possessed.
At first, the opportunity was presented to me by my friend who is now my partner. He was fully into agriculture while I was busy with my consulting job.

After my interaction with him, I saw that we could achieve a lot of farming is done rightly. He spoke to me about the Ajebor farmer's idea but sincerely I couldn't really get the full picture.

My interest in farming became more solid when I worked with a state government in Nigeria to develop policies around its economic potentials. There, my eyes were open to the great and vast untapped potential each state in Nigeria had when it comes to agriculture.
We profiled the state and we discovered that if the state had the political will, the state could feed itself, and export commodities that can earn her a lot of money for her infrastructural development.

These untapped potentials in agriculture kept me thinking of ways to key into it. I started researching personally on what could be done and then I discovered two key issues: firstly, farmers who have taken the onerous task of doing the dirty job of farming lacked timely and adequate input supplies and technical support for them to have the required yield.

I sought to find out why there was little or no technical support to these farmers and I was shocked to know that most persons who are technically inclined were not adequately engaged. Extension workers were only available from development agencies like IITA and the likes.

Those who are not opportune to work in such organizations find themselves doing other jobs aside agriculture for which they have been trained. So my passion was to connect the farmers and the technical experts to work together to achieve a common goal. Secondly, is the huge finances involved in achieving this.

Having worked with highly placed Nigerians and those in power, I saw a great need. They needed a secure way to invest their money.
This crystallized what my friend had spoken to me about. It brought about setting up the Ajebor Farmers platform. The idea is to give these ever busy highly placed individuals a trusted platform that can ensure they had returned on investment and have their capital intact. The bigger idea is to connect these three together: the highly placed individuals, the technical experts, and the farmers to endure increased agricultural productivity and wealth creation.

These highly placed individuals are those we call the Ajebor farmers. This is because they have the money to deploy into farming but don't have the time to do it directly. So, our platform gives them the opportunity to do so conveniently.

How did you go about making this project a reality?

Someone said, "Until you wake up and work, your dreams can't become a reality." I had to wake up and work. Together with a team of very committed partners, we have been able to reach out to the Ajebors, which of course we are still doing. We've connected with a lot of individuals and organizations with the technical-know-how and our farmers. So it's all work and dedication to the vision.

What are your biggest challenges so far?

Access to finance. It is a major setback for every startup. Though the government has put in place several support programs for those in agriculture which we have also taken advantage of, I must say that the delay in processing the facilities takes a lot of time. But in all, we are doing our best to ensure that we get more Ajebor Farmers on board.

Are the government policies in Nigeria working for or against you?

The government policies and programs have been for our good. An example is the closure of the border. We are taking advantage of it to improve our rice value chain and ensure that our product meets international standards. The end game for us is to earn foreign exchange through agriculture.

What are the short term and long term plans of Ajebor Farmers?

Our short term goals are to consolidate on our successes, get more investors and technical experts, help more farmers, and make much more money by expanding our backward integration plans.

For our long term, we are seriously working towards a zero-waste in our farms and factories, this is our forward integration plan. It is really massive what we are currently working on and with your support I know we'd be able to achieve this vision.

Based on personal experience, what advice do you have for entrepreneurs and investors planning to partner with Ajebor Farmers?

Ours is the best place to invest. We have insurance coverage and our partners and investors are happy with what they have seen so far. We are eager to work with you to make an impact while creating an extra income.

How can investors partner with you?

Simply visit our website now at https://ajeborfarmers.com and invest in any of our available farm projects. You can chat with us on WhatsApp, call us, or visit any of our offices nationwide.

Ajebor Premium rice ready for distribution and consumption all over Nigeria at highly competitive prices. Delivery is available nationwide. Get it delivered to you anywhere in Nigeria.


Lalasticlala food don land o.

They are doing well...

DBT Agriculture is coming forward to help farmers - https://techrnews.xyz/dbt-agriculture-registration/

dawnomike:
They are doing well...

Yes. Thank you.