Agro-tech to boost agribusiness –expert

An agro-tech company, Farmnow, has stated that it is committed to fostering tech-driven collaborative solutions that will make agriculture profitable for stakeholders in the agro-value chain.

Ms Evelyn Oloyede, Business Manager, Farmnow, made this known in a statement in Lagos.

Oloyede said that as one of the surviving agri-tech firms in the industry, it had successfully completed over 28 agro ventures.

She noted that the company had paid over 70 per cent of all due investments across its chicken processing venture, garri processing and retail, pig, layers and tomato farms, respectively.

“It is no news that Farmnow currently wades through a downtime, evident in the incessant rescheduling of payouts.

“This is due to the adverse effect of a drastic decline in our revenue as a result of an increase in the cost of production, unfavourable market conditions and low spending power of consumers,” she said.

Oloyede, however, said to protect stakeholders’ economic interest and offset all outstanding payouts, there was an urgent need to restructure all payments over a longer, more feasible and sustainable duration.

“This is imperative so as to ensure the survival of the business and protect our financial capacity to maintain our contractual obligations with you and other partners,” she said.

According to her, payout of due capital and return on investments have been restructured to span across the next 18 to 24 months from a date to be later communicated in personalised payment schedules.

“It saddens our hearts to have you experience this unfavourable business weather with us,” she said.

Oloyede noted that the company had fine-tuned its farming projections to suit the current economic situation and absorb future unprecedented changes to avoid the recurrence of such downtime.

“Other arms of the company – Farmnow Direct (Agro-logistics), Farmnow Retail (Agro-processing), and our partnerships with Agro-Research and Data Institutes remain fully functional.

“Our farms are expected to begin operations as soon as our projections pass the litmus phase,” she said.

She called for endurance and continuous cooperation as the company handles the process, saying it was an inevitable growth phase. (NAN)