Small-scale farmers, for various reasons, are sometimes unable to sell their crops. To improve their conditions while supplying fresh products to those who need them, a tech entrepreneur has set up a tailor-made solution in Senegal.

Bayseddo is an agritech solution developed by a Senegalese startup. It is a business-to-business e-commerce platform that connects farmers who need financing with individuals who want to invest in their farms. By investing in farming projects, investors take shares valid for 12 to 24 months. 

"When you leave one city for another on the African continent - from Dakar to Saint-Louis in Senegal for example- we [always] see roadsides littered with thousands of hectares of undeveloped farmland while news about famine, unemployment, or food imports abound.  Whereas in Europe, when you leave a city for another (Paris - Havre), roadsides are littered with thousands of hectares of exploited, eye-catching green land. The alternative agriculture financing initiative Bayseddo 2.0 was born from that observation," said Mamadou Sall, founder of Bayseddo. 

The solution has an Android app, which is not on PlayStore. Through the app and the web platform, users can register to access the services Bayseddo offers. Farmers can access financing through the startup's partner banks. Merchants can get fresh products at competitive prices, have them delivered timely, and pay via mobile money or cash on delivery. 

The solution is always looking for ways to deliver more impacts in Senegal, the sub-region, and the African diaspora as a whole. Thanks to that approach, it has distributed more than 4,500 products and has over 275 resellers and partners with some 530 farmers. 

Its assumed mission is to set an inclusive partnership framework allowing Africa to feed itself. In November 2018, It was selected among forty Senegalese startups for government funding via a funding vehicle designed to develop the local tech ecosystem. With $2 million earmarked for the entire cohort, Bayseddo was awarded $100,000 to support its growth.

Adoni Conrad Quenum