Fresh off its US$100K Hult Prize Foundation backing, local agritech startup FarmHut has partnered up with the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU). The partnership is a no brainer because the one thing that smallholder farmers haven’t had in Zimbabwe is a marketplace that they can sell their produce competitively and sustainably.
We all know that farming is a costly and time-sensitive industry. Most walk into it without having identified where they are going to sell their products and how they are going to get their wares to market.
Smallholder farmers often lose a lot of money through wastage or, in the big open markets, by selling their produce below market value in order to just make enough to feed their families.
The partnership between the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) and FarmHut addresses those problems, in part of course. FarmHut is bringing its AI-powered marketplace and value offering at discounted fees to reduce the marginalization gap and ensure that smallholder farmers reach sustainable production.
“ZFU is happy to be in the partnership with Farmhut which is aimed at bridging the digital gap and addressing pertinent issues like market linkages, real time information on markets and technical aspects and most importantly predictive analytics on the markets which is now very important”
Simbarashe Muchena, ZFU Commodities Executive
FarmHut CEO, Ryan Katayi said that the partnership with the ZFU aligns with the startup’s mission and prerogative of providing the best information services and technology to farmers in Zimbabwe. He closed by saying that this partnership also helps accelerate the uptake of technology in the farming sector.
Want to know more about FarmHut?
A couple of weeks ago we had a chance to talk to FarmHut’s CEO Ryan Katayi about the startup’s business model, the US$100K it received from the Hult Prize Foundation and what the company has planned for the future.-techzim