Posted on April, 4, 2022 at 09:12 am
Farming has been described as a venture that needs patience, a character trait that’s a preserve for some.
New venture
A new venture, Ziimart is capitalising on offering a solution to people who want to invest in agriculture but lack enough resources. Once they invest, the company does the farming for them.
Digital farming
The way it works is digital farmers invest by buying investment units from an online platform at an investment unit price which contains all operational costs involved in working on the investment from the start until the products from the investment are sold.
When the product is sold the principle and profit is paid to the investor charging a commission on the profit to the investor.
Essentially, the company is an agricultural investment platform that makes it simple for people to profitably invest in agriculture by becoming digital farmers.
Poultry, rabbit farming
It has run pilots for broiler poultry, rabbits, and infrastructure investment.
Established in 2016, Ziimart sought to mitigate the challenge of shortage to financing in agriculture, which is severely affecting Uganda, yet agriculture is the largest employer, with statistics of employment standing at 64.6 percent of the working population, according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UNBS).
“Agriculture has been largely left to uneducated, unskilled, poor smallholder farmers that have neither the capital nor the expertise to fully harvest the potential of their resources,” says Margaret Ingabire, the company’s chief financial officer.
That has made it worse by the fact that the largely formal working people which account for about 3.6m of the national population of Uganda in urban areas who have capital to invest in agriculture but lack a way to invest in agriculture mainly safely and profitably because they lack the time, sufficient capital to commercialise and expertise to monitor their agricultural Investments.
Ingabire adds; “This and the sight of countries that are less naturally suited for agriculture in terms of climate and soils quality immensely profiting from agriculture while several in Uganda starve on the fertile soils and suffer in poverty. We knew we had to change the course of events.”
Target population
The solution they offer targets the urban working individual in formal employment aged 25-40 years that saves more than Shs100,000 per month and has desire to earn extra income.
The other are people retiring from the work force especially those with retirement benefits such as NSSF as well as the unemployed youth and women who can provide labour and can be helped to access grant or loan capital to invest on the farms ran by the agricultural initiative.
Ingabire has 10 years in animal husbandry, five years in marketing and administration.
She is chief marketer of Ziimart. She says that she has gotten a deeper understanding of business which has improved the business processes at work thanks to mentorship from the American supported Academy of Women Entrepreneurs which has also widened her network to other entrepreneurs.
She explains; “Mentorship is very important to guide businesses especially with start-up business to guide them on setting up systems that are required for business success.”
The Tony Elumelu Foundation, a philanthropic initiative that empowers African entrepreneurs, selected Ziimart among its top 1000 entrepreneurs in 2018. It made it to the list of top 15 businesses in the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs.
Award
The Tony Elumelu Foundation, a philanthropic initiative that empowers African entrepreneurs, selected Ziimart among its top 1000 entrepreneurs in 2018. It made it the list of Top 15 businesses in the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs.
Source: Monitor