About us

Our immediate focus is Sub Saharan Africa as we all have strong connections and experience there: Kelechi is Nigerian; Duncan spent time in Zimbabwe as a VSO and been involved in businesses trading in and out of Africa in many guises since; John spent four years in Malawi and Karen spent six, both having forged lifelong connections there. However, we are not limited by geography and see the opportunities that Smallholdr can bring to farming businesses across the world.

We aim to transform how farming organisations trade with smallholder farmers

Karen Smith, Co-founder

We have witnessed the levels of poverty in developing countries, and the myriad of factors that conspire to make those living on the land struggle to make ends meet. We also believe in the power of the private sector; it is vital for SMEs in such countries to get the support they need to thrive and offer markets, infrastructure and jobs – and ultimately a healthy economy – to those with limited educational opportunities and resources.

What the private sector can also offer is information – information on the best way to grow crops, how best to harvest them, how to treat pests and diseases, when and where to sell. The failure of government extension in poor countries with millions of farmers is inevitable. Agribusinesses who wish to grow need to buy from these small farmers, and these farmers need to increase their yields. At the most extreme, the productivity of smallholders in Sub Saharan Africa can be a tenth of that achieved on commercial farms using modern technologies, so there is simply a huge opportunity for improvement and increases in farmer incomes.

Smallholdr offers a solution for organisations to who wish to capture, manage, analyse and USE data effectively and efficiently in order to develop mutual and profitable relationships with the poor in their value chains. We have no illusions about the scale of the challenge to improve the livelihoods of small farmers, but we think our software can provide a step up to those engaging in agriculture in Africa as well as elsewhere in the world.

We have shared some of our views on the limited utility of spreadsheets and the story of one of our visionary clients on the Practitioner Hub for Inclusive Business. If you relate to these topics – or anything else above – and would like to speak to us about any of them, or about what Smallholdr can do, we would love to hear from you.
duncan@smallholdr.com