In our last post, we shared that our business has evolved and this evolution will directly have an impact on how our investors can invest in Farmkart. Here’s why:

Our public funding process is currently on hold and will be for a while.

In January 2021, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in Nigeria made new rules to regulate crowdfunding for businesses operating within the country. The new rules have placed fresh conditions of public crowdfunding processes by MSMEs, which includes limitation of funds and introduction of intermediaries and other participants.

We appreciate the measures being set up by the commission and are working to fully comply with all the requirements — should we need to go for a public raise in the near future.

All hope is not lost, there are still four dynamic ways you can invest in us:

1. Buy Farmkart products: With our current business model, we are evolving to provide fish and poultry on a retail level. We want you to experience the Farmkart farm in your home. We want to be part of your kitchen. Invite us in by buying our products for yourself, your family and your friends. This way, you are investing in the success and continued growth of the business. While you might not make money now, you will fill your tummy and be energized to make money in some other way. But most importantly, you will keep us alive long enough until we IPO like Jumia, AIRBNB, Apple, etc. and then you can become a shareholder in our company. We really can’t wait to have you on board and share this day with you.
2. Share Farmkart with your Community: Don’t just buy our products, tell people about it. Tell your family, become our evangelist. Again, this will help us grow at a much faster rate and we can race towards the IPO line even faster. That means, you can become a shareholder faster. Our promise to you are — Quality, Affordability, and Accessibility. We intend to keep that promise to you and all the people you bring our way.
3. Tell a VC about US or Share Investment Opportunities with Us: If you know a VC interested in investing in an agri-tech startup or a tech startup, tell them about us or share the opportunity with us, and we will give it our best shot. We will make you proud.
4. Be Part of Our Community: We really want to build a family with you. Follow us on social media, stay connected via our email community and ask us questions, engage with our campaigns. Investing your time and emotions in us is worth so much and we will make the return on investment worth it.
5. Directly Invest in Farmkart, we accept check sizes from $5000 in exchange for equity as we journey to raise $3,000,000. If you are interested in becoming a legacy investor with Farmkart, send us a mail via info@groupegapol.com for further discussion.

Thank you for your continued support and investment in Farmkart. We have gone from building a dream into a business that has been alive for over 5 years, thanks to you. You mean the world to us.

The post How to Invest in Farmkart appeared first on Farmkart.

When the sun shines on clay and wax; clay gets stronger, wax melts. But when it rains, both the wax and the clay get wet.

Coronavirus disease was the rain of 2020. The entire world, all races, rich or poor, old or young, clay or wax, felt the impact of the pandemic. But here’s how it affected Farmkart:

Throwback to 2020.

We came into 2020 with the aspirations to scale Farmkart by over 500 percent considering how we have consolidated our processes and have efficiently made a profit for years. But 2020 had other plans. The national lockdown, which lasted months, hampered our demand and supply chains.

Challenges and successes.

As far as challenges go, we have had a little more than our fair share. At the end of 2020, the inflation rate in Nigeria had risen to 15.92%.

However, in our sector, prices of feed increase by nearly 100% in the same time. In January 2020, a 15kg bag of layers feed was sold for N2,750. Today, the same goes for almost N5,000. This has affected our processes a lot, but we keep working around it. We will continue to work with feed companies such as Olam, TopFeed, Animal Care to surmount the challenge.

Astronomical import duty, delay at the seaport, and the rising cost of farm inputs, and building materials also affected our operations in the year under review.

Despite the pandemic, we went on with our expansion plans and received our first expansion shipment which contained the 30,000-bird fully automated poultry cages excluding egg picking setup.

As a result, we kicked off the construction of new poultry pens. This is currently on-going, and as of January 31, 2021, we had completed 50% of the construction. The second shipment, which has the entire poultry housing needed to complete the project, is on the way and is due to arrive in the last week of February.

We would also be putting a purchase value on our POL Point Lay of Birds so they would be ready by the conclusion of the pen house. We plan to have this section up and running by the second quarter of 2021. This new set up will increase our capacity from 69,000 eggs to 792,000 eggs, every 30 days!

Energy for us and the community

Our farm electrification project was also completed in 2020. In the process, we also brought power into our host community, ensuring that many of the houses in the area became part of the national grid for the first time. We have also upgraded our alternative power source, getting a new generating set and fixing our solar power units as support systems.

This, we believe, will ensure that the project enjoys an uninterrupted power supply while reducing our diesel consumption as our new fish breeding system needs at least 20 hours of constant power on a daily basis.

Looking Forward to 2021

On January 22 this year, we turned five and this also signified the birth of a new beginning in our business. A few changes to expect:

Change In Business Model:

We are evolving from an agri-invest platform to an agri-retail platform. This change means that you will probably evolve from an investor to a consumer of the products we produce on the farm. Our focus will continue to be on protein — fish and poultry products but this time, we will bring it to the comfort of your kitchen.

New aquaculture experience

In line with our sustainability approach, we are switching to the recirculating aquaculture system. This is a sustainable and efficient model, which saves 90 percent water and produces significantly less waste while increasing output.

We are currently constructing three recirculatory tanks with the capacity to produce 200 tons of catfish per annum — that is 600,000 fishes per year. We would also be adding nine more tanks to bring our annual production to 2,400,000 fishes.

With our eyes on the continent, we are also flagging off a fully operational processing arm for our fishes. This will enable us to add value to our fishes and open up the market across this country and the rest of Africa. As our studies have found, the demand for smoked fishes is on the rise, due to its longer shelf life and the amazing varieties of delicacy this can be used for.

We are taking these bold steps to serve you better.

Website upgrade: Farmkart 3.0

Having evolved, we want to reflect our growth and progress on our digital home. As part of our utilitarian celebration, we are upgrading the website to reflect the changes we have seen in the business in the last five years.

The new website will reflect our corporate identity, showing you all the divisions of our business from poultry to consulting. It would also show our corporate governance structure. Everything about our culture will be communicated via the website.

Partnership with USAID Trade Hub

Farmkart is now a partner of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) West Africa Trade Hub Initiative. USAID is granting Farmkart $500K to expand our aquaculture operations to Delta State. This expansion will double our current capacity and provide jobs to over 50 youth and women in the state.

How can you invest in Farmkart based on these changes? Keep an eye out for our next article here and join our community.

As we find our way out of the world-resetting situation, we embrace the beginning of a new season. We feel optimistic about the year 2021 than any other year in our history and we know that with you on our side, we can and we will continue to break new frontiers and succeed.

The post Farmkart, The Past & The Future appeared first on Farmkart.

Building an investment vehicle for agriculture through crowdfunding at Farmkart.ng

The passion for agriculture runs within our family. My late dad worked with Mitchell Farms in the ’80s where he was a sales executive. I saw an increasing demand for livestock consumption in Nigeria as well as youths who lacked interest in farming. In my further studies, I realised our production and consumption rates were not aligned.

Regardless of my role as IT Support in NNPC Zonal Office in 2012, I started Farmkart in December 2015 which was the only viable and acceptable investment for public servants in Nigeria. My passion for agriculture grew and in December 2016, I quit my job and fully focused on building Farmkart.

At Farmkart we are building an investment vehicle for agriculture through crowdfunding. Our goals are to make an impact on food security, support our local farmers by creating capital and jobs as well as promoting youth inclusion in agriculture.

We launched with aquaculture focusing on catfish because from my research Nigeria is the highest importer of Fish products in Africa and the 4th largest in the world after China, Japan and the USA. Our annual fish demand is estimated at 3.3 million metric tons and with our production capacity at 1.2 million metric tons, there is a gap in supply of 2.1 million metric tons. 80 per cent of fish produced in Nigeria are catfish which shows the demand for more local production.

The Farmkart investment model has been tested for 2 years with Investors, and we learned how best to reduce risks, secure investments and optimize returns. We are now ready to increase our production capacity to make a greater impact.

Our management team is currently made up of myself Jesse Osiobe, Evans Akanno (CEO Cregital) and Temitope Aina (ex Sahara Energy). With our experiences in various areas of work, we have put together the expertise to build a viable business for Farmkart.

We invite you to join us on this journey to promoting youth inclusion in agriculture, enhancing food security for our rapidly expanding population, decreasing carbon footprint from importation and boosting Nigeria’s economy.

Let’s invest in agriculture together!

The post Farmkart 2.0 appeared first on Farmkart.