N-Frnds partners with MINAGRI and USAID to use mobile phones to provide services to small-scale farmers and agribusinesses
KIGALI — On November 28th, 2017, 30 young women in Rubavu District, Northern Province graduated as Youth Entrepreneur Fellows to market and scale the use of N-Frnds technology in agriculture. The ceremony marked the official launch of the N-Frnds mAgri platform, an affordable digital software that increases access to agricultural information and services for farmers through the use of simple mobile phones without the need for internet.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through its Private Sector Driven Agricultural Growth Project (PSDAG), is partnering with N-Frnds and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) to provide a cost-effective communication and information management tool for Rwandan farmers and agribusinesses. For example, farmers can now receive weather updates, agronomic information or seasonal farming tips, while MINAGRI is able to collect detailed information from farmers for planning purposes, such as how much produce was collected in a specific region — all just by using simple mobile phones.
N-Frnds is a global software company that has been operating in Rwanda since 2014. It has since become an important player in the Rwandan ICT eco-system where the company powers the Irembo platform in partnership with RwandaOnline, an initiative to digitize government services to Rwandan businesses and citizens. N-Frnds has over 15 million mass market users in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia who benefit from financial and government services that would otherwise be inaccessible, particularly to rural users. The N-Frnds tool is accessible on any mobile phone, with no need for mobile data, ensuring that no one gets left behind and all can be part of the digital world.
N-Frnds has already digitized the milk value chain in Rwanda, enabling MINAGRI to collect daily reports and analytics from 30 milk collection centers throughout the country. N-Frnds has also partnered with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture to disseminate climate related information more broadly to farmers under the USAID-funded Climate Services for Agriculture project.
In addition, the company is developing partnerships with private agribusinesses. These partners see many opportunities to leverage the N-Frnds tool for aggregation, marketing, communication and collecting information from their supply farmers.
Through phase one of the USAID partnership with n-Frnds, 712 people including young women entrepreneur fellows, farm promoters, and milk collection center representatives have been trained on the use of mAgri. N-Frnds plans to reach 15,000 new users within its first year.
At the graduation ceremony, the first of three cohorts of fellows shared their experiences over the past 4-months where they gained entrepreneurial skills and hands-on experience training and marketing the use of the N-Frnds tool. The young women will use their skills to earn income and increase farmers’ access to critical agriculture information that will improve their agribusinesses.
“We are thrilled to partner with USAID through PSDAG who have been incredibly supportive partners and enabled us to both adapt the N-Frnds platform to the specific needs of Rwandan farmers and supported us in the training of fellows who play such an important role in the successful adoption of technology among smallholder farmers.” Caylee Talpert, VP Business Development, N-Frnds.
The Private Sector Driven Agricultural Growth (PSDAG) program is a five-year (2014–2019) project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The goal of PSDAG is to increase smallholder farmers’ incomes by promoting private sector investments and to facilitate the transformation of agriculture into a market-oriented, competitive, and high-value sector. For more information, please visit. www.usaid.gov.
