Episode 37 — transcript

African Farmers Own Livestock In Billions. Banks Said No. He Proved Them Wrong Bernard Njathi Imfuyo

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:03 [Music] Greetings ladies and gentlemen and welcome to episode 37 of the African do podcast where we tell uh stories of excellent Africans executing excellently. Today we we go back to Agri. Agri has been quite popular uh but Agri in a different form. Agri mixed with a bit of digital and with a bit of financial and financial modeling. A very very interesting conversation and with us today is Bernard Njadi. Bernard is the founder of Infuo Farm Limited. Is that is it limited?
Um it's limited.
Yes.
Yeah. Private limited company. Yeah.
Okay. But infuo farm limited and we learn more about both Bernard and Infuo and the very interesting work they are doing in in that space. Bernard, welcome to the African Do podcast.

0:52
It's an honor to be here.
Excellent. Bernard, we like to to to see how entrepreneurs who are on the podcast find the themselves where they are and we do so by starting with at the beginning. So who's Bannard and where do you come from and how do you
how do you find yourself trying to blend these two worlds of digital finance and agree
together? Yeah.
Yeah. Um so Bernard is an interesting character so to say
because Bernard was born and raised um in part Nairobi, parti part Embu.
Okay.
And uh Bernard also comes from a lineage of a very popular livestock trader in Mount Kenya. Okay.
Who is my grandfather?
Yes. Uh Bernard is also a gentleman that has been in the fintech space for over 15 years.

1:48
Yes.
I've also been in digital products for the last 15 years or so.
Okay.
And so you're looking at Bernard who is driven to use technology and uh combine certain solutions within the agricultural ecosystem
just to solve problems.
Excellent. So before we get into the details of the fintech,
yeah,
maybe you can speak a bit about you said your your earlier career was in fintech and you spent about 15 years there and I would assume that's a formal career that's that's employment. So let's walk us through that. What were you doing there? Uh what were what were you working on? Who were you working with?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's an interesting one by the way because I got into it accidentally.

2:30
Okay.
Yeah. So I after campus um I I did first I did business administration in technical university of Kenya.
Yes.
Back in the day it was called uh poly techchnic university of Kenya.
Then also went to University of Nairobi where I did also a similar course in business as well.
Mhm.
Uh but even before I got into that I remember and it's an interesting story. Uh give me like a minute I'll explain it.
Um when I finished my form four
Mhm. I sat in the house one day and I saw an advertisement on TV
saying that all the insurance companies are meeting at KIC. Okay.
And they're going to be showcasing their products.
And this should be around 2008 there.
Mhm.
And I got interested. I said then I'll go and see what is this thing called insurance and where are they meeting in KC. It was free. It was an open exhibition.

3:21
Yes.
And so I go there. I go from different insurance company. their attent. And finally, I get to Jubilee Insurance.
Yes.
And when I get to Jubilee Insurance is right before I get to Jubilee Insurance,
there's a gentleman there called Washira.
He was a manager then.
Yeah.
He was just standing on one corner looking at me very kindly at the corner of his eye.
And he asked me, "Do you want a job?"
You're straight out of for
I've not even gone to campus and all that. And he asked me, "Do you want a job?"
Yes.
So first I got shocked and I said, "Yes." Okay. So he told me come and sit. So he told me about this insurance world and all that. I got to understand it here and there got interesting and then he told me come on Monday to Jubilee Exchange along Mangina Street.

4:06
So that's how I got into the world of financial services in this case uh insurance.
So you went what did Washira give you when you went there on Monday?
Uh when I went there of course Washira first of all and this is a light joke. I know he's watching this or he's going to watch it anyway. uh Washira had me sit at his office for about 6 hours
waiting for him
and I was extremely excited because it was a new opportunity and all that and I was pretty young
and
I was waiting for him. So when he came then he took me through a bit of understanding what is insurance what do they do etc etc
then took me to the larger team and then I was assigned to a specific uh guide
and then a specific smaller unit

4:46
to do what
to start understanding what I should start selling and what
so you you became an insurance salesman
I have a lot of respect for insurance salesmen I don't think there's a harder job in the world than selling insurance
oh it gets better it gets better so I did know that was being programmed of course by the almighty god for me to actually use it all the way 15 years.
So you went into insurance sales straight out of for
correct but just before that I did a lot of experiential marketing you know so all these different experiential opportunities of advertising products um in different places in restaurants in hotels in clubs
um events etc etc and all that including the airel um and Zane SIM cards. and safar and all those things.

5:34
So you know when you're just off from school you're interested to do such things get a bit of money in your pocket.
So the journey gets even extremely better because as I continued doing that
which was quite interesting uh I got to know so many different people.
Then the same thing happened to me that happened uh during the Washira moment.
Yes.
I went to sell to one gentleman um who owns um an agency.
Yes. a media agency, media production and creative advertising agency.
So I sell to him insurance and looks at me again and says, "Do you want a job?"
Oh, really?
Yes. Then I became the business development manager for a company called Thei Media.
Okay.
Convert Mo is a good friend of mine.

6:15
And what did The Lesie Media do?
The media then they were doing more of media production. So TV shooting TV commercials, infomercials, weddings, da da da, all those different things. But they later translated to something else in agency and advertisements. Exact different thing in entertainment. Yeah.
So these these these early jobs probably got you into the discipline of work. Correct.
Quite early. So selling insurance that's really tough work
and then you transition onto something else. But you then go to university, you finish your business administration. Now how do you transition into tech or finish?
So this is still interesting. I never left uh work for school.
Oh and school.

6:56
Yeah. I was combining both. So you'll find me along gongro doing my thing.
Yes.
Then in the evening I head out to uh classes.
All right. So you took evening classes so that you can work during the day.
Yeah.
And then Kenya poly technique um in the evening for your classes.
Correct.
Okay. And that took you like what 3 4 years
about let's say about 6 years cumulative.
6 years because of your working uh there was a breakup um of course financial challenges as well here and there. Um and again you're working so you find yourself going to different places at times you're missing classes you're behind on something here and there
but all is well yeah
and then you graduate.

7:38
Yes.
So 6 years later you graduate where do we find ourselves after that?
Good. So to answer the question that you asked about getting into fintech
um so something similar again happened. So when I left the media
I went to radio Africa group.
Okay. uh where I worked for the star newspaper um and of course the larger radio Africa ecosystem selling spaces newspapers and TV and all that
uh there's a very good gentleman there called Patrick Nenda who was a former GM back in the day that is 2013 there
again something similar happened
and he mentioned that
he a his was a bit different
so he said I have some good friends of mine
who have a nice technology thing that they are you know, he didn't know much about what they were doing at that time, at least to explain it in a way that I would.

8:26
Do you want to transition to something in tech?
Okay.
And so I get to meet this gentleman. Um, back then they were called Web Tribe Limited or Jamop Web Tribe Limited or Jamop Limited.
Yes.
And so I get there and I get into a whole new world.
I haven't done tech in school. I haven't sold it at all. Mhm.
And at the same time that time tech was different from now because at that time tech was just at the entry point and the company was doing
year wise. Where are we?
This is around 20 late 2013 there.
2013. Okay.
So I'm transitioning from radio Africa group directly into
um jumbo to do what? Transition to do what? had to be the account manager of certain uh business accounts

9:09
but later on transitions into I transition into the head of business um head of East Africa business etc etc
and basically what I was doing
so digital payments digital payments ecosystem yeah digital payment ecosystem so that time it's interesting because that's why I'm saying technology was different then most people didn't know what is digital payments
what is a payment gateway
uh what is how you process payments over e-commerce what is mobile labs, USSD, etc., etc. So, I got into the fintech world
as late as 2013. At that time, most people didn't even know what is an e-commerce.
Okay.
So, we would go to different shops in CBD and actually help them understand. You have a physical shop,

9:50
but we can translate the whole shop into a digital shop. There was it was a lot of work. Now, it's easy.
You know, the shopkeeper or the stall owner,
he gets it.
They do it at the comfort of their home. you know, just open some platform, integrate some few things, fill up some few things, pay some few things, set up your own shop
and go on. Yeah.
So that was when I got into the fintech ecosystem.
Okay.
And uh um after Jumbo P.
So now that gets interesting, the story still continues in the same manner, in the same format.
So um enter homeboy um group.
Oh wow.
Ma.
Mhm. So Mike Kraba uh and his team at home boys wanted to do a certain envoy delegate high level meeting.

10:39
Mhm.
But they needed them to register
online.
And so they reached out to us and said hey can you help us create one a website or a portal to create certain steps in terms of registrations and in integrate your payment gateway which had empa money visa masterard all those things and even a wallet. Yes. So I do that and it goes on very well
and then I sit down with Mike. I look at his ecosystem and tell him I think you have a gold mine here
and I think we can do something together with you. So I proposed to my can we create a digital wallet for entertainment
so that as you do the whole tent thing they do the equipments screens and all that
can we also then create a digital entertainment wallet that will then allow people who are coming to events to load money and just use that specific wallet within the entertainment ecosystem

11:33
and possibly extended to other merchants like bars restaurants etc etc and this is as early as 2015 Okay.
And it went very well. So as we mapped it out because uh I'm I'm a good product manager as well.
Yes.
Uh he's the question came again.
Would you want
to join them
to join and help me create this ecosystem?
Yes.
And so that happened to Homeboy
Homeboy Entertainment for about uh a year and a half or something like this.
And we built a digital entertainment wallet, the first of its kind. It was it was called Swipe Then. Mhm.
Then we partnered with the former Chase Bank and did a couple of nice things.
Uh I think the first white uh all party event
uh from from France, the first of its kind here we did the digital payments

12:20
uh then
um and that was nice because then it it brought me back to the entertainment world. Remember I was in radio Africa and I was also in media production. Yes.
So it brought me back to the entertainment world. being able to understand the different problems in entertainment ecosystem and how you can develop solutions and all that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay. So you have this career. It started out like many things do not not really like a plan well laid out plan but kind of you stumbled onto it but you made the best of what it is.
But you then where do you move now from home boys?
Yeah. So it continues the same same format continues. Um so again some gentlemen that had just raised about $500,000

13:06
in Kenya they were setting up something called uh at that time we were we were trying to replicate PTM.
PTM is India's arguably India's largest um digital payment ecosystem. It's like Alibaba. It's called Alipe. It's like Alipe. Yes. And the whole Alibaba ecosystem. Literally everything under one under one roof. M
so there's a gentleman there called Wally who reached out to me
and said I see what you're doing at um Jumbo Pay and again Homeboy and all that and now we have raised some money and would like also to have you on board try and see what you can do
to create what
to create a full mobile commerce ecosystem that has payments that has merchant payments wallets literally think of um the WeChat ecosystem, the Alipe system, literally all those things in one. That's what we were trying to do then. And we had some money. So we expanded to Tanzania, Uganda and Ronda.

14:10
And what are they called these guys?
That was called Cyber Cyber Africa, Cyber City Solutions. And went very well, you know. Um and the same thing happened again. So as I was getting into Saiba, I was I got into Saiba and I was again ushered in with the same question. Would you want
to come on board and we build an ecosystem? And we did that very well
across um East Africa. So that gave me at least an international exposure because I would go all the way to different countries in East Africa. uh do a lot of uh central bank conversations because you need licenses, PSPs, do a lot of conversations with telecommunications, you know, uh MTM, MTN, AEL and many others, Zantel, DGO, all those things, all those different telecommunication companies. Yeah.

14:56
Okay. Okay.
This is now about 2016 there, late 2016 there.
Yeah.
And around that same time, so I was always keeping in touch with my people at Jamup.
At Jamop.
Yes. and they needed a head of business.
So you went back
I went back
to where you started
to where I started the fintech ecosystem
uh career.
But now this time you have become a fint I'm a serious monster.
Yeah, you're a tech guy. That time I'm a serious guru because I understand at least even though I cannot code
I understand literally the whole you know from ideiation um to product development to taking to market to scaling all those things. M
so I went back a bit heavier
and that was nice because now I was dealing with different heavy accounts county NHF

15:49
uh different county governments etc etc so that then gave me a different understanding
the understanding at least of policy advocacy how to deal with governments and all those different moving pieces when you're trying to digitize the government and all that so whether it's Nairobi county or other counties that were outside
uh Nairobi of course our customers to
Jamopim. Okay. Okay. Okay. And is that where you settle?
So um I was there for about an year and a half.
Mhm.
Someone else came. Okay.
Yeah. You're not afraid of moving. You
So one thing at least now I know because I'm 37 years old. I'm not saying that it's too old but at least I have some scars.
Yes.
As a 37 year old of course who has a family

16:33
I have a bit of scars. I've been burnt a lot. So I'm able to understand a couple of few things. So one of the things that I understand as I answer you is that I'm a good risk taker of opportunities. But at that time I didn't know what I was doing
because all that kind of calm everything to what now we do as info.com and we'll get there. So another gentleman came knocking but now this gentleman was from uh Spain.
Mhm.
And he came knocking and said hey
we have this opportunity and we want a director of sales for the whole continent of Africa.
Oh wow.
And the man
and what is it called?
It's called Safe View.
Safe view. Safe view.
Safe view. Safe view. Yeah. It's a media conditioning company. So basically what

17:11
what does media conditioning mean? I don't think many people lay men will understand media conditioning company. What is a media?
So basically what they do they have two lines of work. One is software and the other one is hardware. So software means they're building what is called OTT. OTT means over the top something like Vasa, Netflix, such type of things. VOD is video on demand ecosystem as well where you're building a nice simple ecosystem. people can watch some videos and pay. Remember, I'm coming from a digital payments ecosystem, so I'm able to plug in.
Yes,
that was around 2018. It was interesting because at that time, Vasa was just warming up.
Vasa RMS.
Yes.
So, um, at that time, and allow me to just mention this. It seems as if I was always a first of a kind in a certain entry and entry in this case means like a market of some sort. Yes. cuz I remember trying to convince Safar to come up with a VOD, a video on demand ecosystem,

18:08
an OTD like Netflix.
I remember going to um radio Africa as well going back there and talking to them as well.
Um we actually did some RF RFPs, standard media, nation media and we won technically financially. They never approved it because of budgets and whatever else because we were charging a lot. So that was interesting. M
so you see that ecosystem and that journey. Yeah. So,
so what do you do at safe view? So safely I was looking for partners or clients
that are willing to digitize their ecosystems of content
into a certain framework. In this case these are softwares
simply said maybe something like Netflix or something like view sasa and then it has different components in it you know there's streaming there's going live there's recorded there's pushing content all these different thing then it somehow just gets into the whole ecosystem of pushing entertainment content out. Okay,

19:05
that's what I was doing.
So, if you were dealing with software, that is software. Then there was hardware.
Hardware is uh you see these digital boxes that transmit signals like go TV.
Yes.
Uh you know them go TV, DSTV all those. So we also building such things and selling them out as well.
Yeah.
Okay. So safe view takes you how long?
Safe view took me about uh about an year or so.
Mhm.
About a year or so. And they ran out of money.
Oh wow.
They ran out of the budget they had set
for Africa. For Africa
for the Africa adventure.
Yeah. Expansion.
So it came to an end. Yeah. Expansion. Adventure. It depends on which word you choose to use. Yeah. And and so that leaves you where.

19:51
So that leaves me at least hanging.
Mhm.
You know, because that happened around November of 2018 there. Something like that.
Okay. And uh luckily at least I had a bit of savings here and there. Uh of course the support of my lovely wife as well.
When does the family come in? No,
the family came in in 2015.
Okay.
2015 now. You're a family man now.
But then the kids came in later 2017 and 2020.
Okay. Okay.
Um so that time at least had built a proper network, you know, so I was able to try a lot. Yes.
Lot of work.
So you're you're you're able to 2018 you go into what?
Yeah. So 2018 I go into consultancy
okay
and I didn't know if it was consultancy at the time but I was just trying to talk to different organization and tell them hey

20:36
um I think I can do something for you
help you here and there your digitizing journey or something like that
around that time
the same thing happened again
so there's a Chinese gentleman who just wrote me a message on LinkedIn because I'm very active on LinkedIn I think for those that know um a gentleman
a Chinese gentleman right he's called Nemo or Nemo writes me a a message on LinkedIn and asked me a very weird question.
He asked me, am I able to get him a taxi that is reliable in Kenya that he can use
for moving around?
Mhm.
So I wondered, okay, so what is this?
So you know how you check the profile, you try to understand, I can see this guy seems proper and all that. He's well balanced.

21:23
Said, okay, so let me try and talk to him. And so I talk to him. He gives me his uh witch number. We start talking and tells me he's coming into Kenya with his business partners to set up um a solar home system um product.
Yeah.
Okay. And I don't have something tangible that time. Yeah. So tell him then I think I can do something for you guys because I have all these different networks whether you're talking about banks whether you're talking about telecommunication companies because those two pieces are needed for um the solar home system to work was called solar at that time.
Yes.
And then I become a director at one person shareholding.
Okay.
We set up everything and do it and you know design everything the products the documents they have a manufacturing station in China and they bring them in.

22:08
Mhm. I think I sat that for about from late 2018 there when we were warming up up to about August of 2019.
Mhm.
And again another opportunity came knocking.
Um one of my friends who owns I'll not mention the name uh who owns a big betting company but still has a digital uh payments uh company and also a DCP. DCP is digital credit provider.
Yeah. So the likes of Tala and Branch and all comes knocking and says, "Hey,
we know you and we've been in touch with you for quite a while and we know what you can do.
Do you think you can help us build an ecosystem in digital credit provision and then bring in a bit of digital payments here and there and money transfer?
Mhm.
I transition.

22:54
Okay.
So I was there until uh so there basically what I was doing I was heading the whole ecosystem
building the product leading the team. So by team I mean tech people, uh customer service people, um product people and all that. Yeah.
And just trying to make everything right, including scaling and all that. Because I remember we at the time I got in the product had about 4,000 customers. By the time I was leaving, it was about 65,000
okay
customers. You know, rapid growth mainly because of advertising.
Yes,
we did a lot of TV advertising. And you know Kenyans when you hear that you can actually borrow some money from some app they will definitely jump on it. So that's how we grew that rapidly and that was now by close of about 2020. That is when I left. But there's an interesting perspective here that I'd like to share because I think it cuts across different businesses and different ecosystems of challenging uh of challenges. I mean um right around

23:52 the same time in early 2020 was a time we announced our first COVID case.
Yes. And that spinned the business upside down.
Which one? The one you were in. Yeah, the one I was in, which is now the credit provision platform.
Um because first everyone was in a panic mode. What is this 19? What does it do and all the conspiracies around it and all that time
and around the same time is when my second born was coming into the picture in Feb of 2020.
Yeah. So basically what that happened in context of what we are speaking is that everyone that had a loan stop playing stop paying crisis
crisis and then you remember the president then former president Uru said that anyone who has a loan will not be charged an interest then he later on came back and said they will not be listed at

24:44
CRB. So it only gets worse you know because now that means the defaulting book the loan book was just ballooning and ballooning and ballooning you know
I think by close of 2020 when things somehow were understandable in terms of
oh the loan book was insane
it was insane a disaster
oh it was a terrible one but anyway it was not only us
there many other organizations shut and all that especially digital financial solutions and all that
but now we um to here we're talking about agree
and this is something now you're not seeking work
you you come out into infuo and you form so tell us the thinking behind it what what takes you around out of this world of digital financial payment ecosystems and the whole digital world that you had spent what um if we are in 2020 um let's say about from 2013 about 7 8 going 10 years in.

25:46
So how do you then decide that you're going to start in
fuyo? So right around that time late 2020 is when we go into agri fintech.
So our current business that we own is called infuo.comfarm.
Okay.
And infuo basically means livestock. So it's a bantto name from the zulu dialect of South Africa.
Mhm. And then when we were just warming up in late 2020 and then 2021, we wanted to be a national livestock registration database.
National livestock registration registration database. Okay.
So you know the excitement of trying something new
the excitement.
But what what pulls you to this?
It's not a random thing. You know, it's not random that you're just picking up. So where do you find this and you say I want to set up a national livestock

26:40
database? Yeah. So remember I had a few breaks in between my career and all that. Yes.
And every time I was asking myself every time that I representing organizations everyone seems to think that I'm a business owner.
Okay.
Or rather I have some shares in those businesses. Some I had.
Yeah. Um then I started asking myself how are we going to at least by how by we I mean I
how am I going to actually develop a product
that I can turn into a company because it seems as if I was coming just at the tail end of my employment. It's as if that season had completely expired you know because I was literally thrown out into entrepreneurship. So I started asking myself now that I have all this information about financial institutions. I've dealt with financial institutions. I've dealt with insurance companies. I've dealt with data, tech,

27:30 media and all that. What can I do?
And then I have a prominent grandfather who was a livestock trader.
Mhm.
So the connection to the agree is your grandfather is my grandfather.
Okay.
And I always asked myself when I was 5 years would go to the rural area
would always in embu time. So we would always have so many livestock in one place. Mhm.
So many livestock, you know, like 300 cows, goats and sheep.
And he would always send us maybe like almost 2 km away with my brothers. So we had taken them to a certain market,
but almost every single time I would see my grandfather and father selling livestock, you know, and at times it was difficult because, you know, at times they don't have the money or they have the livestock.

28:22
So I always wondered and this is at 5 years old. M
so that thought stayed with me until just around 2020 there
started asking myself how do farmers have livestock
but no cash
but no cash how doesn't make sense
then I just started researching just online is there anything that can favor farmers
then I ran into something called movable property security rights act which is a law
in Kenya
in Kenya yeah
it's called what
movable property security rights act which is a law that was signed into law by president uru in 2017 Okay.
So I read about it
and what does it say?
Yeah. So I read about it and basically it says that livestock can be used as collateral to acquire a loan.

29:02
So if you join the dots of my journey I was like okay to acquire a loan I've been in loan I've been loans and lending and all that. M
so then I started researching asking myself is it true that if I walk to a bank and I have assets such as cows they can actually give me a loan
and it is true but unfortunately the framework does not support them to easily do it as easy as you'd walk with your own
so I started asking myself how
how is it that it cannot work because an ironical example is first we depend on farmers three times a you know, the morning, the lunch time
and the evening.
And a farmer could be having 1 million worth of livestock,
you know, just within their their their farm. And 1 million worth of livestock is not a lot of livestock. This could be about 10 cows each worth 100,000. These are dairy cows.

29:59
But they need something as simple as maybe 500, maybe 50,000,
50,000. And if they walk to the bank, they will not get it. So then based on that research then I asked myself then what do we do? Then I started mapping it out. Remember I'm a good product manager and I started talking to banks and reading all these about this law. Then I found myself going to the ministry of agriculture and talking to people. I found myself going to Kenya veterary board, Kenya veterary association. This is now in 2021. Then I started asking myself we need a host a pilot that I can demonstrate to them that we can actually create identification of the cow. So now the banks can say we now know that this cow is owned by farmer A and because it's owned by farmer A then they can be able to insure it as a bank and then now because it is insurable they can actually give the farmer a loan against these assets. M

30:55
so it looked very well looked very nice in theory and the banks had done something like that but not too much of it in fact when you look at the business daily this year in May uh of this year the assets used livestock used are just under 100,000 as of when that was p published um the movable property security rights act um database
so far in Kenya today we have about 100,000 uh loans
there are more of course there are more than that Okay, let's say slightly over 100,000 loans
taken by farmers using their livestock as collateral.
Correct. This is as of business daily on May 2025.
So we don't know if it's cumulatively fair enough or it's just over a period of one financial year and something like that.

31:41
But when you say you're looking for a pilot,
yeah,
you're looking for a pilot to do what?
Good. So this pilot that we wanted to do is that now we have understood the problem
and somehow we have a solution that seems to work. The first of all we need to identify the cow that this specific cow is owned by Leonard.
So now we know that you can actually I'll be explaining in a few I have a couple of few things here. Then now the second piece was how do we know this is truly Leonard's cows. So that means we actually need to actually have a profile for
the cow and a profile for the livestock and then we marry them up. Remember I'm coming from software background. Yeah.
Take us to these colorful things.

32:21
Yes. Yes. Yes. So these are basic um ear identification um hardwares.
Yeah.
And I say basic because they are much more advanced than this.
Okay.
These ones are good because they are cheaper for the market.
Yes.
And they're also much more affordable for the farmer.
Yeah.
And they the farmers know about them.
Yeah.
Um so what you're looking at here is an ear tag.
Okay.
What this ear tag does, of course, you see it has the the infuo logo and the the tag here on this right ear. Okay.
Yeah. So basically what it does is that it creates the profile
of a livestock
so that now the financial institutions can say that this specific cow of number 317 is actually owned by a farmer Leonard Mudachi as an example. So we get to create a profile of the livestock

33:08
through a software of course
and then we also get to create another profile of the farmer
marry it up
and then present it to financial institutions. There are a couple of things that we do in between there. I'm just giving a high level understanding. But what you're looking at here is for example this is called an ear tag. This is basic and it's in the market. However, there are other advanced that are much more sophisticated.
Take us down to the advanced.
Yeah. So um first let me talk about this because I think it's important for our business. So info.com is in the area of data and finance. Basically what we do we collect farmer and livestock data.
Then we unlock financial services and solution for farmers. Financial services for us means only three things. One is financial literacy. Remember we're dealing with underbanked and unbanked rural farmers because that's where the cows are. So that means the first thing you need to at least introduce them to what is a loan.

33:59
Yes.
How do you use the money? Basic financial literacy. Then the second uh product there is livestock insurance. They cannot get a loan according to the law that I mentioned if the cow has not been insured. But the insurance companies and the banks that offer bank assurance cannot insure this cow unless it has been identified. And for identification there's an interesting thing that happens there because you need to have the right type of hardware. Any ear tag is not just any ear tag. Just before I tell you the advanced one as we move on. Yeah. So uh one of the things that financial institutions love us for is the fact that our ear tags are engraved or or rather laser printed. This means it doesn't wear off.

34:38
Okay. It can be on a cow's ear for the period or the mortality period of of a cow and then it's tamperroof.
Tamper proof means once you plug it into cow's ear using this gadget here which is called an applicator that means then you cannot remove it. Why is that important? It's important because again it's going to fight against insurance fraud. Insurance fraud basically means a farmer can easily if it's not tamperproof can remove one ear tag from the cow and put it into a cow B and slaughter cow A and go claiming to the insurance company that my cow was stolen etc etc and a claim is given out the insurance company then loses money and if there was a loan tied to that then the banks have a problem.

35:19
Okay.
Yeah. So we use basic hardware. This is a basic hardware. This is for the cow. Uh the smaller ones here which you see here are for small ruminants which is our best play. We do a lot of small ruminance area. Those are
that's goods and sheep
and sheep. Yes. The small ones here you can see are for uh goods and sheep. So people may be asking for the ones that don't that don't know what is all this. This is called the male part which gets into the female part.
Yeah. If I was to show you an example with this this is the female part.
Yeah. And the male part gets here.
Okay. That means goat orders [Music] uh are different because some of them are able to transmit some signals.

36:07
Uh you can have one like a cow neck collar tag. The cow wears uh a digital collar
which then transmits some information to uh a software. So the information that is transmitted could be anything like the heat of a cow like basic temperature. If the cow is actually on heat, that's also a parameter we look for when we're dealing with livestock. Even how many steps is taken, you know, was it in one area for a long time.
Such solutions are amazing and such hardwares and software amazing.
Who gets that too?
Because you have this basic solution and then you have a high you have a high-end I'm assuming you also play with RFID chips and other things like that. Yes.
So who how do you determine who is getting this farmer? Is it the guy of shags who the one who's unbanked who you start him off light and as he progresses you or how do you do it?

37:04
So this is a good question Leonard and just allow me to explain.
So there are factors that are above our control
and let me just take a bit of time to explain here because now it captures a couple of few things.
Yes. Now to answer you u we may not directly dictate who will get what. I'll tell you why.
The rural farmer who is a small holder livestock farmer
doesn't have the financial ability to buy an expensive much more modern uh ear tag
or the collar neck tag whether it's RFID NFC which means near field communication whatever form of tech it's quite expensive for them.
Yes. It could be anywhere between 10,000 shillings even to 30,000 Kina shillings
per per depending on the functionalities. That's too expensive. Yes. So that's why we decided if the simple one like this one here can work then we shall use the simple one and make sure. So the reason why we do that is because the rural small holder livestock farmers one we are trying to help them

38:00
and so you must give them a solution that they can easily afford. So this one will set them back about 200 shillings. But if we bundle a couple of products inside there that we offer, it can be a packaged price.
Tell us about those.
So a package price would mean that we are offering um a hardware which is the ear identification helping them to at least map out their their animals and know this animal versus this animal.
Yeah.
Um and then we are still collecting the data because we have our own software. We collect the data and we upload the data into some software. The data here is the farmer and also the livestock. the livestock. We're collecting immunizations, treatments, vaccination, basically everything that you need to know this livestock.

38:42
And then to add to that, we are also offering trainings.
We have a veterary doctors, nutritionist that we work with that make sure at least we create a training program. There's something we call uh CBE, a community based education programs. In fact, we are just starting a farmer academy that should be able to help farmers understand. So the first product is identification um ear tags and also software which is collection of data. The farmers are not interacting with this software. We are because again we don't want quality issues and uh improper data collected. The second one is literacy just training them on how to breed, how to feed, how to vaccinate etc etc which is our infu farmers academy. Then the third one then is financial services. financial services in this case would mean then being able to give them livestock insurance and also being able to give them loans against the livestock. So we bundle that. That would

39:36 set back a farmer if he's in a group anywhere between 1,500 all the way to 3,000 depending on how many farmers they have
not per cow. If it is a group then we have a bundled package.
But if it's an individual, we simply pick whatever product this farmer needs.
There are some farmers out here that are very advanced.
They have gone out of their ways and they have created something that works for them. But most of them you'll find there's not small holder livestock farmers. Some of them have a bit of capital here and there. They have set up a feed lot or a nice dairy ecosystem business and they're doing well. Some of those you'll find they have actually insured their cows. They vaccinate and they keep the records. Now the larger

40:16 bit which is the farmers in the smaller ecosystem and arguably they about 7 million in the country that's the larger that bit that we want to uh address. Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Okay. So we have an understanding
of this uh what you're doing but maybe I can ask a couple of question
and and the first is very simple.
I understand what you do.
How do you make money?
Yeah.
Or how do you
become profitable?
Yeah. So as a young growing business there are a couple of few steps we've taken.
Yes.
Uh and I think this one is very um relevant to people who are in upcoming business basically startups. M
so the first thing that we have done is to incorporate ourel in Delaware US

41:05
for purposes of attracting running capital
so that's the first way we are able to at least make money out of investments because these investments
then unlock our ability to do the work on the ground then helping us to do much more money
and are you in Delaware are you in Delaware because of a frustration or a lack of local capital
actually both
both uh tell us a bit more about that.
That's that's a good one and I'd like to address it a bit.
Um,
capital is biased.
Mhm.
And when you start breaking it down to our level or our ecosystem, it's
complicated and I'll get that I'll get to that in a few. Um, so we in Delaware because of attracting capital for sure because capital being biased the venture capitalists that come into this country get most of their money at least from the USA.

41:56
Yes. and they want you to at least have an entity in their local market they understand yeah taxes and everything else and whatever else that is in between I don't want to get into all that so that's number one number two uh the fact that we have a Delaware entity also opens for us a lot of things
we able to participate in different accelerators in the US different programs we also able to get shareholders as well and attract capital directly from the US getting capital here for a young growing business is difficult.
Yeah,
we have tried we have tried on um an angel investor level, you know, high net worth individuals in the country, people who promise you ticket sizes of about 5 million Kenya shillings and rightfully so. They can write it out for you, but they take too much time or they bring some complexities that are not looking very nice. For instance, they may tell you, I want 50% of your business. I want 70% of your business. I'm giving you

42:50 this capital and I need it after 3 months. It doesn't make sense, especially in our area of business. Yes,
because we need patient catalytic capital.
Yeah, patient catalytic capital.
Fair enough.
So that's some of the reasons why we are there. Yeah.
Okay. But given a local solution, you would be here.
Uh yes, we would. In fact, one of the things we've been trying to do is create our own fund in a different outfit that I wear. We are creating our own agricultural fund with other partners from South Africa and the US
because we've realized anything that is agriculture and you throw in a bit of tech there you throw in a bit of finance there it's not being looked at the same way as your usual logistics e-commerce edtech media tech solutions by investors because some of the investors are actually clueless when it comes to how do you invest uh your money into the agricultural ecosystem. they haven't tested such models as much as they have

43:46 tested uh the other models. So given an opportunity for us to have an access local capital here for the enlargement of our business of course that will be uh something that we jump into. Interesting enough there as I just stretched that point because of what we do we've done a lot of pilots with banks and even just commercial work and we go back to banks I won't mention the names and we tell them hey we are facing a challenge here as a young growing business we just want you to put our bills as we bring you the following one a customer who is called a farmer who is going to open a bank account number two who is going to deposit some money who is going to be paid paid their proceeds of milk and beef, whatever it is through your bank account. And all we want you to do is food some of our bill, put x amount of money into a bank account that is in fuyo in your ecosystem so that we

44:40 go out there and bring you more customers.
Pretty easy and pretty understandable.
How's that conversation going?
Uh, it's always nice in the boardroom.
Very good in the boardroom. You have the high level managers looking good. It doesn't materialize.
Yeah. And you know why it doesn't materialize? It's it's not because um they are not interested in it materializing but because the focus for funding agriculture hasn't yet properly been mainstreamed by them.
An idea of being very diplomatic maybe because you work with them but they are lazy.
That's true.
Kenyan banks are just I'm sorry. I know I have many banker friends but the guys are just lazy.
But fair enough. That's a conversation for another day. Yeah.

45:23
And
Wow. Okay, so you're here now. I think you've you've you're you're well way past a proof of concept.
The thing works. Um I think what for me are stuck is the cows are exciting, but cows are considered high value,
but I was I'm I'm I'm a bit of a champion of small ruminance. Yes.
So when I heard that you have a small ruminant product, that's also very interesting. So you're telling me that a goat and sheep farmer working with you can start him on a journey that where he his 10 goats and five sheep are actually curated as an asset
and as curated in a way that is able to go to a financial institution and say to them here is my asset of my 15 animals, 10 goats, five sheep
and I need to borrow 25,000 shillings. things.

46:19
Yeah.
And the thirdly and and and there's actually that is is is a real thing in Kenya today.
Correct. It is at least through us.
Okay.
And the reason why I say through us is because first we are not the we are not the inventor so to say
of course
or the only company that is trying to do this. Yes. But somehow we figured out our model
and we did it again on trial
and it came out successfully
or rather it was one of those things that you bump into without knowing what you're doing.
We have a model that is called infuo mi model.
Okay.
And the reason why it's called infui model is because the most successful um group we worked with is called mi.
Where are they?

47:03
They in kyaga county.
Okay. And there's a lot of materials online people can read and all that. And basically the way that model works is that we deal with small ruminance like you've rightfully said. And basically what we do is that we bring farmers into an ecosystem. This e ecosystem must be structured.
So we are getting farmers of common interest
farmers that are interested in actually going the long journey you know the whole of it.
So once we bring them together we take them through some classes master classes. Remember I said we have a farmers academy. So we train them on what is this small ruminant? If it's a dairy goat, what is a dairy goat? What does it do? The dos, the don'ts, the breed, the d all those basically the whole thing. And then we graduate them. just before we graduate them which may take about 3 months depending on how large the group is. We've put in certain

47:53 structures where for example we are telling them one they need to be in a legally registered entity whether it's a community based organization or whatever else within that ecosystem of registrations. Uh then at that time we've already taught them how to appoint leaderships. So you have your treasurer, your secretary, your chairman. Then we've also told them it is important for them to start putting in some money to keep the account or the bank account they have opened active those that then become the membership phase. Then as we continue in the journey, this is a period of less than 60 days or if it is longer 90 days, they are getting interested because they are farmers and we are telling them something interesting that they know but it has not been done in the way that we are doing it at least for them and this time they are bit sold to the idea and all that and then they're saying okay so

48:44 they need goats of this price and maybe each needs two and two and two. So we run our numbers and see of course maybe one goat will be about 20,000. I'm just giving a number maybe two will be 40,000 okay then we bring it back to our farmers because now we have already married to a point where they are business partners we're telling them okay as a young growing business we may not be able to to fund for you the whole amount so we need you to have some skin in the game we want you to have some commitment this is where they also then do a deposit between 10% to 30% of the price of the goat and then we go out seeking the other fund we may fund it internally through a financial partner or through our funds and and financial partners and then as they graduate we have a proper criteria. These number of farmers need this type of goods. They

49:30 breed and all that and we have all networks on the ground. So we are able to run them up, tag the goods, vaccinate them, bring them to one collection center and the farmers go with their goods. It doesn't stop there because our model is from ideiation or bringing together these groups all the way to bringing the product to market. So just before the goats get into the farmer's houses, the farmers have somehow graduated and between that time we're even teaching them how to build god housing structures which is an interesting conversation because ideally you think a farmer knows everything concerning keeping gods cows and sheep and all that. No, there's a way dull should actually be housed which is different from from cows. So we have taught them that we build the structures together with them at a cost of course and then now they bring the goats into um the new houses in their farms and

50:21 then now we start teaching them how to feed them. Then progressively we start doing projections of milk. But these number of goats maybe in one farm arguably can produce about four liters at the highest maybe 2 lit 2 liters maybe in the morning or throughout the whole day depending on feeding the age the breed etc etc. As we do that, we already have a market. We have um companies that are already buying milk directly from them. So now what works for this model is the fact that the fact that you're doing end to end ideation to take into market including putting money into the farmers uh pockets. So this specific this specific this specific group has 27 uh farmers but now as we speak they're close to 60. They started as 27 they are now closing about 60. We started with 27 goats. Now the goats are 160 goats just within a very short period of under two years. Reproduction

51:16 of goats, more purchase of goats because now farmers are empowered. They want to buy more for themselves. Yeah.
Okay. So where are you in the country? Where where
we do a lot of work in m Kenya regions. Okay.
So Kirinyaga, Kiamu, Ner, Muranga. Uh we touched a bit of Betar sometimes back but pivoted uh to Mount Kenya regions. Yeah.
Excellent. Yeah.
Wow. Uh Bernard, that's a very interesting story. Um I have a bit of a love affair with with small ruminance in in particular, but it's very very interesting to see how your journey, which is not I would say direct has brought you into this space.
Yeah.
So ours is just to say, man, keep at it. Uh, I think you're doing fabulous work and I hope this podcast or you as a guest on this podcast does do more to get you out there because I think it's quite great and I hope

52:11
someone listening can see how this is of value at a national scale. Uh, I think you should just be
in the mount Kenya region. I think that assets that we know and understand like our livestock uh but marrying them with fintech and with tech and then financial services is is um a great initiative and we can only wish you all the best.
Thank you.
But as we wrap up, I'll give you an opportunity to just speak to the audience.
Yeah. and tell them where they can find out where is infuo you know those who want to come and maybe people and want to learn more about your products at all spectrums of the market
and um yeah so that they can get to know you so please welcome to introduce them

52:59
thank you
so I'd like to address uh the audience of course directly um and first I'd like to thank our existing farmers and partners and for any other farmer out there or dairy cooperative, farmer group, farmer associations, etc., etc. that would want to work with us. We are more than happy to have that conversation. You can get us online on infur or just go to YouTube and search for infur and other socials as well. You're going to get our contacts there. We would like to work with as many farmers as possible. So, that directly translates to a lot of uh job employments and economic opportunities. So we asking banks um in the famous in the famous words of Leonardo to not be so um rigid. We want to work with you banks and we want to work with you you know and we want to be able to build ecosystems of data and finance within livestock value chain. In other words just growing your loan portfolio in

54:02 agriculture. Now for the government of course of the day it's doing a lot of nice things concerning uh data registration in farmers and all that. We sat with the current PS of livestock and he was telling us all these amazing things. So we are more than excited to also partner with him in the areas of advocacy and policy etc etc. Thank you.
Excellent. So uh ladies and gentlemen that was a very interesting uh episode. I'm still digesting what I have learned myself, but it's really exciting to see all these things that maybe um Kenyans sitting in our silos, day-to-day silos don't get to see.
True.
So um infarm Bard Jadi, thank you very much for being a guest on the African Do podcast.

54:49
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was episode 37 of the African Do podcast and it was a pleasure to have Bernard and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Follow us on YouTube, subscribe to our channel, and Spotify also. Subscribe to our channel. Um, on our socials, we are largely on LinkedIn and Instagram. You can see what we're doing there. And, uh, yeah, see you next time. Thank you very much. [Music]