“I did not choose Agriculture but I have found myself doing it all my life”
Have you ever tried going in a particular direction only to be nudged toward another several times over? Such was the case for 26 year old Alloysius Attah, co-founder and CEO of Farmerline.
Standing at 5ft 8 inches, Alloysius now bursts with enthusiasm about his new found love; Agribusiness.
Very few youth in the country have an enthusiasm for Agriculture, no matter what form it takes; but for Alloysius, it was a calling.
At five years old, Alloysius’ moved in with his aunt, who was a small-scale farmer in the Volta region of Ghana.
“I spent 15 years of my life living with my aunt in the Volta region. I was helping on the farm which I didn’t like because I preferred to play football with my friends. However, being with her on the farm exposed me to many challenges our farmers face across Africa.
When I was very young, I wanted to be a doctor but as I grew, my desire changed to wanting to be in business. In SSS, I opted for business but since I did not go to school early, I lost the opportunity and was given agricultural science.”
Upon making it to college, Alloysius became determined to give back to the people who supported him.
“In KNUST, I got the opportunity to do BSc Natural Resource Management. I thought it had to do with oil and gas however; it was more of forestry, fisheries, wildlife, so I was a bit disappointed.”
His disappointment led him to learn how to code in order to increase his chances at landing a job after graduation. His first class, was however disheartening.
“My desire for programming started when I was in the choir back in KNUST. They were looking to form a committee to build a website for the group.
“At that time I had acquired my very first laptop from a student loan. I didn’t even know how to eject a pen drive from a laptop. I was lost at the first committee meeting because everyone was using jargon in IT. We were told to copy a certain program from a pen drive to the laptop which I didn’t know how to do.
“So I asked the one sitting next to me to help me. The teacher looked at me and said, ‘You have a long way to go’.”
As discouraging as that statement was, Alloysuis was determined to challenge himself to learn something new in order to give back to his family who helped see him through school.
“…I was determined to get more skills because I didn’t want to finish school and stay in the house. I wanted to do something and give back to my family.”
That desire birthed his very first company, “Alloyworld”, which was not only into photography and video editing but also building websites for student groups.
“I started Alloyworld in my second year at KNUST with one of my friends. We failed twice but broke even at the third try. Through it all however, we learnt a lot and grew. We saw first-hand what it takes to start up a company.”
After graduation, Alloysius joined his current co-founder Emmanuel at his company iCottage networks, a Web and Mobile startup, which they run before deciding to start Farmerline.
“When I completed school, my co-founder and I enrolled into a program organized by the World Wide Web Foundation. They were training people to build apps for mobile phones. We decided that was the best medium to use to reach Ghanaians because there are more mobile phones in the country than computers so we learnt how to build SMS and voice applications.
We were asked to use what we learnt to solve a social issue and because of my background in agriculture, I was very biased toward agriculture. My co-founder’s mother ran a village clinic where pregnant farmers were unable to pay their medical bills because they hadn’t been able to sell their produce to get the money. This is bad for those who account for 80 percent of domestic food production.”
Wanting to empower small scale farmers across Africa who, like his aunt, faced challenges with weather, expert agricultural advice, real-time data support, among others, Alloysius, together with his co-founder, Emmanuel Owusu Addai, launched Farmerline in 2013.
Farmerline is a technology product company that builds supply chain and value chain solutions to integrate agricultural outputs of rural farmers in Africa. Its first prototype was an SMS application and “since not everyone could read, it took us another year to come up with a voice application.”
How does it work?
Farmerline is a service specifically focused on smallholder farmers and organisations that need more access to resources. Farmerline connects farmers to markets, financial information, weather forecasts, farming tips and techniques and equipment services through the application of mobile technology. The overall objective is to help smallholder farmers increase their productivity and yield so that they can generate more profit and develop viable, sustainable businesses.
“Realising that around two-thirds of people in rural Ghana now have a mobile phone, we saw an opportunity to bridge the information gap using mobile technology. Rather than relying purely on information transmission by SMS (which obviously has limited value for those that cannot read) Farmerline’s service is delivered as voice recordings in a range of local languages.
Through our mobile messaging platform, governments, development partners and businesses can provide farmers with crop management updates faster and at low cost.
For a small subscription fee, farmers can receive the information on any type of phone and there’s no need for technical knowledge. Farmers can receive SMS text messages or voice recordings in their own local language, using content generated by NGOs and other partnership organisations.”
Aside from providing farmers with information, Farmerline also collates useful intelligence from farmers. For example, farmers might be asked to contribute to surveys assessing the overall effectiveness of initiatives.
They can also ask specific questions via a dedicated support line. The idea is to ensure rural farmers have access to best practice guidance in all areas related to farming including things like product storage, reducing pest infestations and how to get products to market.
Farmerline, which is available in 12 local languages, essentially digitises the work of extension agents. As well as using mobile technology, the Farmerline team works in partnership with the government’s agricultural extension agents in hosting face-to-face workshops for farmers. These workshops help build relationships so that the farmers learn to trust those seeking to support them.
Like every start-up venture, Farmerline has had its fair share of naysayers. According to Alloysius, getting others to believe in the project was the hardest part.
“Few people thought that two young men like Emmanuel and I could develop or roll out something worthwhile that would have a positive impact on people’s lives. We faced a lot of criticism and there were times when it made us defensive. We came close to giving up numerous times, but we’ve learned a lot since then.
Today, the Farmerline project has silenced its critics. With the objective to make a difference by improving the quality of people’s lives and allowing rural communities to prosper, Farmerline now works directly with about 5,000 farmers in Ghana,
“…our technology is also used by a further 200,000 farmers across West Africa namely Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Malawi and Nigeria. This has been made possible through our partnerships with NGOs and international food companies such as Hershey, Ecom Trading and Armajaro,” Alloysius added.
Alloysius has spoken about his work at the 2013 Social Capital Markets Conference and Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona. He became a 2014 finalist: HRM Prince of Wales and Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneur Award at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leadership (CISL). He is also a 2014 Echoing Green Fellow.
The future already looks very bright for the young entrepreneur.
“Our goal is to build on what we have achieved and to get the technology into the hands of those who need it the most.
Closely tied to the vision, is a desire to be African ambassadors for social entrepreneurship by showing others that it is possible to have a wider community impact simply by seeking to engender change in your corner of the world. In ten years we want to reach at least two million farmers all over the world,” he said with a grin.