Benefits of Lady Davina’s farm drop app

Her name is Lady Davina Stevens. She is a Nigerian-born agric-preneur and indeed the Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Farm Drop Africa, registered in both the United Kingdom and Nigeria. She is passionate about boosting the country’s food security, across the entire value chain and has therefore, come up with an app aptly called ‘Farm Drop.’ But what is it all about? That is the million-naira question. The answer in her words is revealing.

“We decided to come up with a farm-to-table concept. What that means is that a farmer who registers with us is able to sell directly to customers, thereby cutting off the middlemen” Interesting, is it not? Of course, it is.

Shedding brighter light on how it all works out she stated that “This assures the customer on the authenticity of the products, especially with the rate at which food items and products are being adulterated.”

But there is more to her hunger-solving mission and app which people interested in agriculture need to know.

For instance, her agric company actively engages in the training of farmers on the critical aspect of food preservation. The salutary aim is to curb adulterated food in the market place. The farmers are also taught on food marketing; on how to overcome the inability to distribute farm produce and overcome cheating by the middle men.

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Furthermore, Farm Drop teaches farmers the nitty gritty of modern agric practices such as hydroponics, aquaponics, vertical farming, how to farm in bags and bowls through her impact-making workshops. Also taught are the critical issues of soil management, application of fertilizers and how to keep all manner of pesticides at bay.

Also relevant is the need for the famers to download the Farm Drop app for android and IOS users. Through that the farmers display their unadulterated farm produce which makes it easier to reach out to their customers.

On the important issue of publicity, she explained via a media chat that she has a well-grounded team doing the needful on social media. In addition, she has engaged a team of 19 members who get in touch directly with the rural farmers. For those of them who have no mobile phone they are formed into cooperatives, with anyone of with a cell phone to head the team. With that in place they can maximally gain from the support given by Farm Drop Nigeria.

The marketing issue is taught to the farmers, to expose them to the vast opportunities of selling their farm produce to different parts of the world. Though she has started her training in Abuja she is reaching out to other states across the country.

In fact, she has reached out to some state governors, as she has a 15-day training workshop in place, scheduled for different senatorial districts. “We are asking them to give us 1,000 small scale farmers and stakeholders like youths and even government officers who are interested in farming. We shall give them 5-day intensive training through our workshop on store management, vertical farming and distribution of their crops, either within the country, Africa and in the Diaspora.” The food market out there is huge. A lot of money could be made, especially as the foreign exchange is high.

All the strides made so far by Lady Davina are commendable and should be sustained. But to expand the Farm Drop scope she needs to reach out to the Federal Ministries of Agriculture, that of Science and Technology and of course, the related research institutes for pragmatic partnerships.

Also significant for Farm Drop Africa and Nigeria is sustained publicity through the mass media and non-governmental organisations that have focus on agripreneurship. With all such collaborations in place the challenges of food insecurity and youth unemployment will be drastically reduced, not only here in Nigeria but the African continent.

To fully underscore the importance of what this app does with regards to food preservation and marketing Nigerians should realize that there is a lot of wastage of food from the farms and rural area to the cities and urban centres. For instance, in 2021 the United Nations revealed that each year 37.9 million tonnes of food get wasted in Nigeria. This was estimated as 189 kg of food per capita wasted. That means that 40 % of food produced in the country, which is equivalent to 31% of her total land use is wasted. But it should not be allowed to go on this way. This challenge is traced to in adequate processing and storage facilities.

Lady Lavina should therefore, waste no further time to reach out to the Ministries of Agriculture and that of Science and Technology at the federal and state government levels as a means to see to the adoption of her FoodDrop app and how to get it across to the relevant stakeholders.

In terms of food insecurity, according to UNICEF 25 million Nigerians were considered food insecure as at 2023. Unfortunately, over six million of those suffering from food insecurity in states battling terrorism such as Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Sokoto, Katsina and Zamfara states are under-5 children. This is an unacceptable situation.

Going by the prevailing hunger in the land with Nigeria ranking 109 out of 125 countries according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI) and over 133million out of 233 million Nigerians considered multi-dimensionally poor, no effort should be spared towards alleviating mass hunger in the country. One of the best ways to be taken is for the Ministry of Agriculture to partner with the National Bureau of Statistics to come up with credible data of Nigerians facing one form of food insecurity or the other to plan for practical solutions.

That should not be by opening the borders for importation of sundry food items which we are capable of producing locally. Rather, the deployment of synergy should be to reach out to the local farmers and get them registered as it was done by the then Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina under the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. To facilitate such policy, the state governors should ensure that security is guaranteed, massive infrastructural development is embarked upon so as to drastically reduce the amount of food wasted at the rural farmlands.

What it all boils down to therefore, is for a more critical appraisal of what Food Drop app and training could do to actualise food security, through training of youths on food preservation, sack and bowl farming, hydroponics and aquaponics as well as food marketing, so that many more millions of citizens are saved from preventable hunger.