About the startup

Farmer First creates Market Access using an online platform providing farmers direct access to market and buyers at competitive market prices and covers the entire value chain of agriculture in terms of Agro-trading, Aggregation and Logistics.

We close the funding gap by using microloans to make farming profitable for African smallholders farmers. We have digitized the lending process to offer farmers tailored loans to enable scale and meet production targets and also by providing banking services by building a mobile and agent banking service to provide financial & banking services tailored to farmer and agro-trader needs.

According to GrowAfrica, only 37.4% of smallholder farmers have access to banking and financial services in sub-Saharan Africa. As at the end of 2019, there is a $26.4bn financing gap for sub-Saharan African smallholder farmers according to GrowAfrica. 

Due to Challenges along the value chain, African farmers have limited access to reliable markets that can pay a fair price for their produce. Unhealthy practices of middlemen across agriculture pose a huge problem. The market price is being fixed by traders for their benefit rather than farmers.