An agricultural company from Nigeria, AFEX Fair Trade Limited (AFTL), has expanded foothold into Kenya in a bid to secure the livelihoods of farmers amid the biting high cost of living.
Speaking to the media, AFEX Kenya’s managing director Tabitha Njuguna noted that the company is offering a Ksh117 million for 5,000 Kenyan farmers to capitalise on inputs and upscale their businesses.
In a bid to replicate the success in Nigeria, the company seeks to secure the continent's food security. The company was recently ranked first in Africa’s Fastest-Growing Companies – Agriculture & Commodities category 2022 by Financial Times ranking.
"The technology powering our operations is one of the best on the continent and is instrumental to our capacity to provide access to logistics delivery, advisory services, inputs, and crucially, access to the market, which are all key to the future of agriculture in Africa,” she stated.
Njuguna added that farmers will have access to the latest technology that will provide access to key logistics delivery, advisory services and inputs.
"We want to dismantle one of the biggest barriers for farmers growing their business – access to finance," she stated.
AFEX plans to expand to various countries in Africa including Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in the next ten years.
Her sentiments were echoed by AFEX chief executive Ayodeji Balogun, who noted that this is an opportunity to work with Kenyan farmers and increase food production," he stated.
"This is one of the most dynamic commodities markets in the world and we are excited to work with Kenyan farmers to help them scale their operations."
"We are acutely aware that increasing food production is futile without an efficient and robust warehousing system to underpin commodities trading, and that technology is key to developing the whole agriculture space in Africa in the coming years.”
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Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, AFEX Kenya's area sales manager, Isaac Kabur, noted that farmers will give 15 percent of their equity distribution as commitment to the programme.
The farmers will be given ten months to pay the loan, whereby the company will buy the same produce at a premium price at the end of the season.
"Next year, we plan to increase the programme to Ksh588 million. At the time, we deal with Maize farmers but we plan to scale this to legumes, rice, and other crops," he stated.
Kabura pointed out that the programme seeks to curb the overreliance on foreign markets in the importation of agricultural products.
