Farm with Twiga!!

                                              

 Reliable access to affordable food is a challenge faced in sub Saharan Africa. Africans spend 45% of their income on food alone. Twiga food in Nairobi is helping to solve this problem. 

Twiga is a Mobile based B2B business which aggregates demands from the small scale fresh fruits and vegetable vendors. They take this demand to the farmers and offer it to them as markets. Twiga's digital marketplace is confronting food insecurity in Kenya's countryside and cities, in turn revolutionizing the fresh food supply chain by connecting thousands of farmers and street vendors.

Many farmers had a problem of finding a marketplace for their produce and always could not get a good return on their crops as the middleman would consume most of the margins. To counter this problem, Twiga started their new hybrid supply chain model which would ensure timely and fair transactions. Twiga would purchase the produce from the farmers on per kilo basis by going to their location and load them to their trucks after inspection. They would immediately transfer the payments to the farmer bank accounts through internet banking or M-pesa. 

Twiga's biggest advantage is their predictable markets and tech helps them reduce post harvest loss and cut out the middlemen. This hybrid model is helping lower high food prices which is typical of African markets. They also help farmers to access credits from financial institutions. Twiga provides consistent markets for the farmers throughout the years unlike the brokers, which in turn eliminates the price fluctuation. Vendors are able to access good quality fruits and vegetables by just the click on the smartphones.

Twiga benefits from equity investments through BOOST Africa- an initiative by European investment bank (EIB) and other European and African partners. BOOST Africa is an organization tackling inequalities through technology and Innovation. 400 people are directly employed here and another 400 are casual workers. It helps the locals to afford a livelihood and take care of their families. For 13000 farmers and 2500 vendors the approach pioneered by Twiga is transforming their lives. 

Reference: www.twiga.com