We're Building Africa's Dispatch Layer for Farm Labor and Equipment
Altfarmg uses AI and real-time matching to connect farmers with the nearest available equipment and skilled labor at the exact moment their crops need it. We're solving a decades-old agricultural logistics bottleneck that costs smallholder farmers billions in lost yield annually.
The Story
In 2023, our founder spent time in agricultural communities across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. The pattern was unmistakable: farmers knew exactly when their crops needed attention — but had no way to reliably find equipment or labor in time. A spraying window might close in 3 days, but it would take a week of phone calls to get a tractor. Equipment owners sat idle in one location while demand spiked 50 kilometers away.
This wasn't a problem of scarcity. Nigeria alone has hundreds of thousands of tractors and farm laborers. The problem was one of coordination: no system existed to predict when resources would be needed and route them there in time.
Meanwhile, AI forecasting and geolocation technology had become affordable enough to solve this at scale. WhatsApp penetration in rural Africa had reached 40%+. Mobile payments were ubiquitous. The pieces existed — they just needed to be assembled into a platform designed specifically for smallholder farmers and equipment providers.
Altfarmg was born to bridge that gap: an AI dispatch network for farm labor and equipment, running on the phones farmers already carry, powered by machine learning models trained on agricultural and weather data, and built on enterprise cloud infrastructure that scales with seasonal demand.
Our Mission
To make timely access to farm equipment and skilled labor predictable and automatic for smallholder farmers across Africa — eliminating missed planting, spraying, and harvest windows, reducing crop loss, and enabling both farmers and service providers to earn reliably and plan ahead.
Missed Timing Costs More Than Missed Money
This isn't a shortage of labor or machinery — it's a failure to move the right resource to the right place at the right time.
A tractor sitting fifteen kilometers away is functionally useless to a farmer who needs it today. Every season, that gap between "available somewhere" and "available now" quietly decides who eats a full harvest and who doesn't.
5–7
days is all a spray window lasts
30%+
yield lost when a window is missed
60%
of equipment sits idle on a given day
Spray window
Day 4 of 6
Missed Timing
Smallholder farmers across Nigeria routinely miss narrow planting, spraying, and harvest windows because they don't own equipment and can't reliably find labor or machinery on short notice.
Yield Loss
Missing a spraying window by even a week can allow pest or disease pressure to cut yield significantly; missing a harvest window risks losing the crop entirely to spoilage or weather.
Provider Idle Time
Equipment owners and skilled laborers sit idle in one location while demand spikes in another region they have no visibility into.
Farmers
Lose yield and income every time a window closes before help arrives.
Providers
Lose earning days sitting idle where nearby demand is invisible to them.
It's a two-sided timing failure — and no one has the data to fix either side.
We Predict the Window, Then Dispatch to Fill It
Altfarmg replaces scattered, reactive access to equipment and labor with one predictive dispatch layer — closing the gap between the moment a farmer needs help and the moment it shows up.
It works quietly in the background: reading crop calendars and weather signals to know a window is opening, then reaching out to the nearest provider before the farmer even has to ask twice.
Easy Task Requests
Farmers request tasks via WhatsApp/USSD ("I need to spray my maize"), or Altfarmg proactively nudges them based on crop calendar and weather data.
Window Prediction
Altfarmg's AI predicts the optimal task window using weather, soil, and historical agronomic patterns specific to that crop and location.
Smart Matching
The matching engine finds the nearest available tractor owner, sprayer operator, or laborer and auto-schedules the task before the window lapses.
Provider Forecasting
A demand-forecasting layer tells equipment and labor providers where demand is about to spike, so they can reposition ahead of time.
Reliability Scores
Trust builds over time for both farmers and providers based on no-shows, task completion, and timeliness — powering a trustworthy two-sided marketplace.
Right place, right time
One predictive engine turns five separate problems into a single dispatch that lands before the window closes.
Dispatch time
Under 2 hours
The Opportunity
Scale of the Problem:Across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda, an estimated 30–40 million smallholder farmers face the same bottleneck. Average yield losses from missed spray windows alone are estimated at 15–25% of potential harvest. That's tens of billions in economic loss annually.
Why Now:Africa's agricultural sector is digitizing rapidly. Mobile penetration is 70%+. WhatsApp is ubiquitous. AI forecasting models have improved dramatically. Cloud infrastructure is affordable. For the first time, it's economically viable to run a real-time matching network for distributed farm labor and equipment.
Defensibility:Altfarmg's competitive moat is data and network effects. As we complete more tasks, our window-prediction models improve. As our provider network grows, match times decrease and farmer experience improves, driving adoption. This creates a virtuous cycle that's hard to replicate.
Our Values
Farmer-First Design
Every feature is designed for farmers using WhatsApp and USSD on basic phones. Complexity hidden, clarity prioritized.
Data-Driven
We make decisions based on agricultural data, not assumptions. Predictions improve as we collect more real-world outcomes.
Reliability Matters
Trust is everything. We surface reliable providers and hold everyone accountable through transparent scoring.
Scale Through Partnership
We partner with cooperatives, agro-dealers, and equipment associations to reach farmers and providers where they already gather.
Meet the Team
Founders and early-stage engineers focused on solving Africa's agricultural logistics challenge.
Khalid Rasheed
Founder / Head of Business
Multi-venture founder with 6+ years building in agriculture, health tech, and legal-tech AI products across West Africa. Led go-to-market for 2 successful exits.
LinkedIn
Abigail Darasimi
AI & Backend Engineering Lead
Machine learning and backend engineer with experience building real-time forecasting models and high-throughput matching systems.
Tamunosaki James
Product & Operations Lead
Product and operations lead with experience turning early-stage marketplace research into shipped features and repeatable processes.
Join the Mission
We're looking for engineers, product builders, and go-to-market experts who believe in solving Africa's agricultural logistics challenge.
Get in TouchMarket Opportunity
Africa's agricultural sector is digitizing. We're filling the critical gap between farmer need and resource availability.
Target Users
- •Smallholder and mid-size farmers (1–20 hectares)
- •Tractor and equipment owners
- •Agro-service providers and specialist laborers
- •Agricultural cooperatives and agribusinesses
Launch & Expansion
- •Launch Markets: Nigeria (Oyo/Ibadan region)
- •Phase 2: Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda
- •Target underserved agri-logistics zones with 50K+ farmers
- •Expand to neighboring West and East Africa within 18 months
Revenue Model
- •Commission on each completed task/dispatch (5–8%)
- •Premium subscription tier for providers (priority demand forecasts)
- •Enterprise API access for cooperatives and agribusinesses
- •Future: certified task data for precision-ag startups
Growth Plan
- •Onboard equipment owners and laborers first in pilot region
- •Build supply density to achieve <15 min avg match time
- •Activate farmer demand through cooperatives and agro-dealers
- •Expand vertically into farm financing and insurance
Why Now
Africa's agricultural sector is digitizing rapidly, mobile and WhatsApp penetration among smallholder farmers is at an all-time high, and AI forecasting and matching technology has become affordable enough to run at scale for the first time. At the same time, equipment and labor access remains one of the biggest unsolved bottlenecks in smallholder farming — not because resources don't exist, but because there's no system predicting when they're needed and routing them there in time. Altfarmg sits at the intersection of these shifts, using AI to turn scattered, reactive equipment and labor access into a predictive, on-time dispatch network.
Join the Altfarmg Movement
Whether you're a farmer, equipment owner, investor, or partner, we'd love to hear from you. Let's solve Africa's agricultural logistics challenge together.
Get in Touch