Leading Change through Democratizing Agriculture

by Rehnuma Karim PhD

Agriculture and agricultural goods is one of the few concepts that will have demand even during dire circumstances. However, the producers on the ground level do not experience the same level of appreciation that they deserve. Fahad Ifaz, co-founder and CEO of iFarmer, takes the responsibility to empower those who ensure our food on the table.

A graduate in economics, Fahad Ifaz didn’t hesitate twice to quit his first job in Banking within 7 days when he realized that he was not at all cut out for this profession. Not many have this courage to act on one’s self-realization but that is what is often needed to start climbing for the summit to find the right alignment with your own passion, skill and work. The Co-founder and CEO of iFarmer Fahad Ifaz knew exactly what he needed to do through his exposure in the development sector in which he worked for 8 years when he made a conscious decision to launch the innovative Startup venture, iFarmer in Bangladesh. 

Although no one can deny the necessity and unparalleled significance of agriculture in a country’s economy, unfortunately, it is often the farmers’ plights that are neglected and take the back seat in conversations. Farmers are undoubtedly the backbone of a country for a country like Bangladesh and with the changing environment in farming and business; they too need to be accommodated with the demands from consumers, food processors, and retailers. The agricultural sector has to face a number of challenges rising from climate change, soil erosion, inadequate arable lands, changes in consumers’ expectations, inadequate preservation facilities, poor market infrastructures, need for integrating new technology for high yield, and finally the challenge to keep young people feel inspired to stay in rural areas and become future farmers. As many of the farmers do not have proper education and understanding of the market, their weaknesses are further being exploited at different levels that keep them from having the fair share of their toil.

Amidst the challenges faced by farmers in countries like Bangladesh, similar concerns resonate in agricultural landscapes worldwide, including Australia. As the agricultural sector evolves to meet contemporary demands, the demand for skilled professionals in agribusiness jobs becomes increasingly apparent. Recognizing this necessity, Agri Talent’s recruitment expertise becomes indispensable, as agribusinesses seek to augment their workforce with skilled professionals capable of navigating the complexities of modern agriculture. Their specialization in sourcing permanent staff equipped with the requisite skills and experience not only meets the demands of the industry but also serves as a catalyst for organizational growth and innovation, propelling agricultural enterprises to the next level of success.

These are some of the problems that were identified by Fahad while he was working for international agencies such as Swiss Contact, Care Australia, and World Bank before he came up with a solution to address the issues with the startup iFarmer. iFarmer’s vision is to build Bangladesh’s most efficient and largest agricultural finance and supply chain platform and improve the lives of the farmers, retailers, businesses, and consumers in a meaningful way. 

In the volatile landscape of business, unforeseen crises can arise, posing significant challenges to even the most well-established enterprises. For startups like iFarmer, navigating such turbulent waters demands a robust crisis management strategy. Anticipating potential pitfalls and proactively addressing them is paramount to safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders involved. Employing effective crisis handling methods involves a multifaceted strategy that encompasses preemptive risk assessment, establishing clear communication channels, and taking swift, decisive action in times of adversity. Moreover, fostering resilience within the organizational culture is essential to weathering storms and emerging stronger on the other side. This entails instilling a mindset of adaptability and agility, empowering team members to pivot swiftly in response to changing circumstances.

Additionally, forging strategic partnerships and alliances can provide invaluable support during times of crisis, leveraging collective resources and expertise to mitigate risks and seize opportunities for growth. By embracing these principles and integrating them into the fabric of its operations, iFarmer can fortify its resilience against potential disruptions, ensuring its continued success in championing the cause of agricultural sustainability and empowerment.

Finding an Innovative Solution

When asked what inspired him to start this type of venture in Bangladesh, Fahad mentioned how his work experiences with Swiss Contact, an international NGO enabled him to travel across the country and made him aware of the exigencies on the state of agriculture and farming in Bangladesh. He later joined the World Bank as a consultant, especially working on rural development for two years. Afterward, he took a position as a Project Director in Myanmar working for Care Australia. At Care, he was in charge of a million-dollar project focused on agriculture. All these experiences allowed him to get a better understanding of the existing problems in different agriculture-based economies. While working on different projects and interventions in this sector, he discovered the different approaches towards solving the existing problems that can take place through more sustainable ways involving all major stakeholders. His curiosity motivated him towards finding new solutions which led him to explore applicable models in Nigeria and Indonesia. As he was so immersed in the problems from different angles it was easier for him to get the clarity he needed to come up with solutions that would work in a Bangladeshi context. Hence in 2018, the idea of iFarmer—the Bangladeshi aggrotech startup was formed with an intention to build an inclusive platform with an aim to democratize agriculture financing and supply chain. The main goal of the company was to enable small-scale farmers and Agro businesses to maximize their profit through financing, support with farm inputs and advising, providing insurance both for farmers and also the retail investors who are investing on the farmers and farm products; and helping to access the market that can ensure fair pricing for all.

Initially, when iFarmer was launched, Fahad and his co-founder Jamil made a conscious decision not to build an app-based Startup at the very beginning as they felt that it would be inconvenient for the rural farmers to adopt technology immediately. And that is why iFarmer operates mainly using WhatsApp and other social media platforms to connect and build awareness of their product and services. Knowing the impact of in-person communication especially with the farmers who are not tech-savvy, iFarmer mobilized field representatives to help the farmers directly at local levels. After a while, although iFarmer transitioned to more tech-based solutions for their business, the assistance model that includes both App and field level support is still a preferred approach. In 2020, the App Sofol from iFarmer was piloted and since then over 42,000 farmers have been on board.

Success through inclusive services

As Fintechs are gaining popularity all over the world, iFarmer took the initiative to create provisions to support both the farmers and the retail investors with funding opportunities and insurance. These services undoubtedly can improve by adding an inclusive aspect into the financial service that is often ignored to support the farming community. iFarmer thus took a bold step to tackle this problem from two angles which included the investors and the farmers. According to Fahad, retail investors who are investing in different portfolios with iFarmer might lose interest to invest if their investment in farming products such as livestock and crops are left to the mercy of Mother Nature. It is a fact that farming is a sector that is vulnerable to uncontrollable natural disasters or sudden calamities. Thus to encourage more investors to support the farmers across Bangladesh, iFarmer introduced an insurance option for the investors to mitigate such risks. The company who partnered with iFarmers therefore could choose to buy insurance to protect their principal amount in case of unavoidable natural calamities and disasters that can directly affect their investments. But this type of insurance was not offered to the farmers earlier as iFarmer directly used to help the member farmers if any such unfortunate event occurred. This was only possible when iFarmer had only a few hundred members but this process has become difficult as the company at present scales serving thousands. To help the member farmers get some sense of security on their produce or live-stock, iFarmer has developed strategic partnerships with prominent insurance companies who were willing to get on board with iFarmer creating an insurance service for farmers. The service through iFarmer, therefore, allowed the farmers to purchase the insurance at an affordable cost and now has the option to protect their live-stock and crops from uncertainties. More farmers are becoming members with iFarmer as they do not have to pay any membership fee for joining, which they often had to pay when they were in co-operative societies or with micro-financing to have access to benefits and support. While discussing further on membership options, Fahad said that any farmer can register with them for free through an app. But as not all farmers have smartphones, iFarmer with the assistance model approach provides field agents who are young and tech savvy to help the farmers register within fifteen to nineteen minutes.

When everyone works together –a lot can be done and problems can be solved effectively. iFarmer’s collective and collaborative approach is a proof of that as they consciously brought representatives of the local government’s agricultural extension departments, iFarmer’s local agents, experts, and farmers working together for a common purpose. The continuous support from diverse angles mobilized through iFarmer thus contributed to increase productivity and wider inclusion of farmers, retailers, and investors to make meaningful impacts.

As we discussed on finding solution to the long supply chain in agriculture that has been contributing to problems such as waste of resources, inequitable and unreliable pricing both for farmers and consumers, increasing farmers cost, Fahad mentioned how iFarmer is helping the local farmers through eliminating the middleman in the whole process. He said, “As we are handling the supply chain side…we are emphasizing on collecting many data points that contain information on when the farmers are producing what and the time of the product maturing. These data points are invaluable as the information enables us to connect and match the demands of the buyers on time. By doing this we are not only helping both the buyers and the farmers get the correct pricing at an affordable rate in a responsible manner but also can reduce excessive wastage of food. 

Team Spirit

Leaders with vision are able to create an environment in which people are not afraid to make mistakes or fail. Fahad Ifaz undoubtedly imbues this leadership insight that has played an important role in building the energetic team of iFarmer. A company’s success depends on its people and when asked how he selects the team members for iFarmer, Fahad confidently said, “We look for attitude more than skill. We think we can always teach people skills but attitude is very important. We look for people who can unlearn and learn fast.”

Fahad seems to reflect the values of Rumi’s quote which said, “Unlearning is the highest form of learning.” Due to the nature of the business, he is in… adaptability is very important and that is why a resilient workforce that can adjust to unpredictability and quickly unlearn to come up with new solutions is crucial to the overall success. He observed that younger people with not that many experiences are more open to failures than more experienced professionals. “Fail fast and learn fast” that is the motto behind the driving force of iFarmer as the bold team moves forward making a change. 

Overcoming Challenges

Amidst many challenges, one of the initial challenges that iFarmer had to overcome was the issue of “Trust”. As they were collecting the initial fund from the urban middle-income families to fund the agro-based projects, building trust with these investors was very important. It is natural to not trust another new startup that yet has not built a track record as people are used to hearing about so many ponzi schemes. This is why; to build the expected credibility, iFarmer had to create that trust through awareness-building initiatives, education, and effective posts using digital and social media.

Another challenge was the process towards integrating technology. According to Fahad, during the first two years of their operation, they didn’t have any technology and did everything manually. This was the period of true learning for them as they completely depended on social media without having an app or an official website. Now looking back, Fahad believes that it might not have been a best-case scenario if they introduced the business at the beginning through App. Although being a Startup they needed to look for VC funding but most VCs were discouraged to fund them initially as the business was not App-based and they thought it impacts the scalability factor. So they did face some early rejection in this tough industry as they were not doing some tech-based approach which the VCs love. But this rejection didn’t deter them as they already had a revenue-generating model in mind that didn’t depend on external funding.

A lot was at stake as Fahad took a huge risk quitting a respectable job with an international development agency that allowed him to earn a six-figure income. But with the support and trust from his friend and co-founder Jamil and also his family members, he took the leap of faith to launch iFarmer without any VC support.

Future vision

With his visionary outlook, Fahad is planning to enter the export market in the near future promoting Bangladeshi agricultural products at the international premium markets. There are few Bangladeshi products that have made their marks in the international market but those are usually happening through closed channels and not accessible to all. This is where iFarmer is considering getting access to the markets abroad, going through the process of qualifying the Bangladeshi farm products under fair trade and USDA certifications to meet the necessary international standards.

iFarmer was planning to go international, especially to Myanmar and Cambodia that were halted by political unrest in Myanmar and also as the pandemic happened. They needed to remap their strategy and realized that at present they do need to focus on serving the Bangladeshi farmers first. At present, iFarmer is serving 40 thousand farmers and there are 20 million farmers in Bangladesh who are yet to be served. This is why iFarmer decided to re-strategize, focusing on the Bangladesh market before heading out to the global marketplace.

Fahad also talked about investing in blockchain and developing a farmer’s credit model to ensure better access to finance for farmers, improve farm traceability and create a more efficient supply chain of farm produce.

On whether COVID-19 had any adverse effect on their business, Fahad said that they were fortunate as by default agriculture seemed to be a COVID-proof industry. The only problem they faced was for a brief period of time when everything was very restricted due to nationwide lockdown affecting the supply chain. But luckily that was a short-term drawback from which the industry quickly recovered. And he appreciated the Government’s quick action to solve the problem as they seemed to quickly realize that urgency to help the agro-based businesses and farmers.

The Staying Power in the Startup Industry

When asked about the reason behind the continuous momentum and growth of iFarmer in an industry often suffering from uncertainties and failures, Fahad pointed out that the majority of the Startups seem to make a common mistake of not planning ahead to activate a sustainable business model from day 1. Most often they feel with a great idea they can be picked up by a VC who can fund them and also look for scopes to exit when they are offered the right price. It is important according to Fahad to emphasize on building a business model that can sustain itself. When iFarmer started the journey, they had a revenue plan from day 1 and were not dependent on VC funding for the operating capital to stay afloat serving the mission. They had a revenue plan and candidly mentioned having no idea about startup valuation in the earlier stages of their operation. But they always had a well-thought strategy to run the business on their own revenue and in the meantime was open to external funding for expansion. “I had more leverage as we had our own revenue being generated and even didn’t have to worry even when people didn’t fund us. We were not short of our runway which was our strength that kept going.” 

Impact that iFarmer wants to Make for Bangladesh

Colors asked Fahad about the impact he wants to make and he answered how one question that keeps him awake at night is the rapid loss of arable lands in Bangladesh. It is unfortunate to see how farmers are selling off their lands finding no other options and also the next generation of farmers is not being created as both the farmer and their children would rather look for a job than choosing a career in farming. Fahad said, “By 2050 we have to feed 230 million people and at the same time agriculture has been so neglected and underrated that not many young people are interested to go into farming like their parents did. 9 out of 10 children of the farmers would say they do not want to become farmers”. This bleak scenario worries him and this is why he wants to make a difference encouraging more young people to become interested in farming and agriculture using better technology and more sustainable methods of farming. With more people returning back to farming – Bangladesh can continue to enjoy saving the foreign reserves that would have otherwise been used to import food. Undoubtedly the unflagging optimism and pragmatic approach through iFarmer holds a hopeful future for the agricultural sector of Bangladesh that is and will shape the lives of the farmers who are the backbone of Bangladesh.