The Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS) has launched a mobile application, Ga’atevest to allow farmers to invest easily in their farm.
The National Coordinator of NFGCS, Mr Retson Tedheke, while briefing journalists at the farm premises in Ga’ate, Nasarawa State, said this move became necessary due to the need to mop up funds to expand the farming in activities in the farm.
The farm, which covers about 3000 hectares, has diary, crop production, poultry, food processing and feed production, among others.
Tedheke said the government had not been supportive, hence the need to launch the App and allow farmers to invest with a very little amount of money became necessary.
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“We have not received any financial support from the government or anybody, we have not received any financial support from any bank in Nigeria, we have written application, we have done paperwork, we even borrowed collateral to come and guarantee them but all to no avail.
“So, the outline for us has been growing the project and growing the process, growing the system using available opportunities, we have made use of crowdfunding to make progress.
“Government is not doing enough, infrastructures are missing, access to machinery are not available, the road leading from the express to this farm was constructed by the farm, we are providing electricity and constructing our own dams without government support.
“We have developed a mobile application (Ga’atevest) where we are telling Nigerians that all of them can now become part owners of the farm.”
He said the farm which started with just N1.5million loan from Kiakia Financial market in 2017, had maintained an average of N1 billion gross turnover every year for the past 3 years.
“We started the farm with N1.5 million loan, but however over the last 3 years, we done on the average of N1 billion every year of gross turnover,” he said.
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