Nigeria has about 79 million hectares of arable land, of which 32 million hectares are cultivated. Over 90% of agricultural production is rain-fed. Smallholders, mostly subsistence producers account for 80% of all farm holdings. Both crop and livestock production remain below potentials. Although the average agricultural growth rate was 7% , this growth lies below the 10% necessary for attaining food security and poverty reduction. Among other factors, inadequate access to and low uptake of high quality seeds, low fertiliser use and generally inefficient production AND trading systems lead to shortfalls.
A majority of farmers sell a large part of their crops in villages resulting in low returns for their harvested crops. There is a difference in the price prevailing at different levels of marketing, i.e., the village, the primary wholesale market, the secondary wholesale, and retail levels.
- Farmers are indebted to village moneylenders, traders or landlords. They are often forced either to enter into advanced sale contracts or sell the crops to them at a loss.
- Many villages are still not connected by roads. Adequate transport means are not available even in villages connected by roads. It is difficult to carry the produce in bullock or camel carts to markets, which are often situated at long distances.
- There is only a small quantity of marketable surplus with a majority of the farmers because of the small size of holdings.
- Farmers are hard-pressed for money to meet their social and other: obligations, and are often forced to sell their produce right in the villages without making back the invested amount on plantation
- Most of the perishable products need to be marketed in the villages because of their low “keeping” quality and the non-availability of quick transport means.
- Many farmers disliked city markets mainly because of their lack of knowledge about prevailing market practices, the possibility of theft or robbery in transit and problems faced by them for selling their produce in city markets.
- The information on the prices prevailing in the nearby primary and secondary wholesale markets is not readily available to the farmers.
MaiFARMLAND is a web based ecommerce platform for locally produced crops to create financial stability for local farmers, create a genuine avenue of sales and acquisition of their crops & produce so to eliminate the discrepancies caused by extorting middlemen in the demand and supply chain within Nigeria and across borders.
On this same platform, farmers are linked with investment for plantation thus creating expansion of farmland for more growth of crops, can engage producers and manufacturers of farming tools and equipment, undergo mentorship on the platform with agricultural experts and also engage consumers.
this will pave way for
CROP FUNDING INVESTMENT paves way for possible investment on plantation of cash crops and other perishable and non perishable crops creating sustainability.
- CROP SALES paves way for direct trading from farmland eliminating insatiable middle men creating financial stability.
- JOB CREATION paves way for creation of more jobs both on the farmland and farm warehouse due to expansion of farmland.
- FARMING TECHNICAL TRAINING paves way for technical fieldwork training on farming tools and techniques to aid great harvest.
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