Riches Attai is the Co-Founder & CEO of Winich Farms. And he just goes straight to the point:
You know how there are at least three layers of middlemen between the smallholder farmers and the informal processors and retailers, leaving the smallholder farmers largely marginalised and the informal processors/ retailers struggling to access inventory when and how they want them, and at the best price.
Well here is what we have done, via a hybrid (offline-online) approach, using technology (USSD and mobile application) – we have provided a platform that allows the informal processor and retailer to get access to their inventory directly from the smallholder farmer.
In fact, there are currently 80,000 active users on the Winich platform who transacted over USD 23M in 2023 alone – up from USD 11M in 2022, and on track to reach USD 50M in 2024. We have seen farmers’ income and off-takers’ productivity increased by over 40% cycle over cycle using Winich.