Growsel, a leading Ag-tech organisation in Nigeria, is targeting to provide financial support to over 10,000 smallholder farmers across the country in the second half of the year.
Oyewole Oketunji, head-business operation, Growsel made this known during the Growsel Supporters Meet Up in Lagos recently.
Oketunji said that Growsel objective is to keep empowering farmers with finance to increase the country’s food production and create employment for the Nigeria’s youth population.
“We are planning to reach out to more than 10,000 farmers in the second half of the year and also get more investors that will actually support the farmers,” he said.
“We are also starting new platform solution to actually meet the needs of the farmers while improving their livelihood and also for our investors to have a stronger relationship with us and better understand our business model,” he further said.
He added that the supporters meet up event was to make the activities of Growsel known to its investors and also give an account of the impact of their investments on the country’s agricultural sector.
Oketunji stated that through the organisations supporters, crowd funded loans are provided for farmers which would be repaid after sales of the planted season.
According to him, the unique thing about Growsel is that it does not give cash to farmers but rather provide input and technical support on global best farming practices for farmers to increase their yields per hectare and improve their livelihood.
Growsel only provide farmers with 10 to 15 percent of total fund, which is normally used to pay direct labour for day-to-day farm management.
“We currently have over 100 investors who have invested this year but we want to grow the number to 300 or 400 before the end of the year. We need more supporters because we have over 10000 farmers currently and we hope to double the number before the end of the year, while our investors grow their money,” Oketunji said.
