Q&A: Connecting remote livestock farmers to global markets
CEO Russel Luck explains how SwiftVEE is helping farmers in SA and across the rest of Africa
25 March 2024 - 05:00
by Denene Erasmus
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SwiftVee’s new product LEANstream offers an affordable online auction solution for farmers with an auction turnover of less than R2.5m. Picture: SUPPLIED
After launching its online livestock auction trading platform in 2019, award-winning SA agritech business SwiftVEE has emerged as one of the dominant players in the local livestock trading industry.
The business has since evolved into a software as a service (SaaS) platform with an agritech and fintech focus. It was recently chosen to go to Kenya as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Scaling Digital Agriculture Innovations through Start-ups (Sais) programme to explore scaling one of its latest products, LEANstream, across Africa to assist small-scale livestock farmers to go online and connect African livestock trading to global markets.
The company has also been recognised by Google Launchpad as the most innovative SA company from developing markets, and the UN awarded it the best e-agri platform globally for sustainability and social impact. While on the Gates Foundation Sais programme this year, SwiftVEE was announced the winner in six out of seven categories at the TT100 Awards for technology innovation.
Business Day’s Denene Erasmus spoke to SwiftVEE founder and CEO Russel Luck about how this business is helping farmers in SA and other African countries access markets and services that can ultimately help them increase their profitability and grow their businesses.
How would you describe SwiftVEE and how has the business grown since its launch?
It is a real-time livestock trading platform. We have grown to be one of the dominant players in that space. Our business has also evolved into a SaaS platforms business with an agritech and fintech focus.
Importantly, we are not an auction house; we are a software company. Livestock auction agents are our primary partners and customers, and they book us to use our online auction platform services on behalf of the farmer.
The company was started in 2016, but before launching we did two years of research & development and then launched the auctions platform in 2019.
The business has grown exponentially since its launch, and we now consistently double our revenue year on year. We are already doing more than $10m worth of trade through the platform annually.
We do several hundred auctions annually, more than there are days in the year, in SA, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe and we are busy expanding to other African countries.
Apart from SA, in which other African markets are you seeing the most growth?
Namibia is our second fastest-growing market and we have opened an office there. Namibia meets the export rules to export to high-value markets such as the UAE, Europe, US and China, and with a footprint in this market we ultimately want to create a trading hub connecting African livestock with buyers all over the world.
To sustainably grow the business and the livestock industry in Africa, you cannot just have African buyers competing against each other in a bidding environment, you need to connect African agriculture to global markers and that’s what we ultimately want to do.
We are also seeing good growth in Botswana and Zimbabwe, and we are looking at expanding to Zambia, Kenya and other African markets with our LEANstream offering, an affordable online auction solution for farmers with an auction turnover of less than R2.5m.
With LEANstream we want to connect small-scale farmers to the correct buyers and create a global trading environment for livestock farmers across SA and other African markets where we operate.
Can you explain what value your business brings to livestock farmers?
Without access to online auctions, livestock farmers in more remote areas are often left to sell their cattle at very low prices when they are forced to reduce their herds due to drought, for example. Essentially, during periods of drought — which Africa will experience more frequently as the effects of climate change become more pronounced — farmers have to feed their livestock at great cost because of poor veld conditions. When this becomes unaffordable, they resort to selling some of their livestock, but they are unlikely to find buyers in close physical proximity because those farmers would be facing the same conditions. This also means that livestock prices decline because of the high supply.
By using our technology, which can connect buyers and sellers across the country and even across borders, we offer these farmers a better marketplace where they can realise better prices for their livestock.
One of the big challenges small-scale livestock farmers in SA face is getting access to financing that could help them grow their businesses. How do your products support these farmers to ultimately achieve that growth?
We want to use our data not by selling it but to create finance solutions for these farmers. We can, for example, use the data we have to compile alternative risk scores for small-scale farmers to get them bankable and in a position to access financing through a banking partner. We want to solve the problem of the “unbanked farmer”.
If we want to see small-scale farmers grow their businesses into larger commercial operations, banks will have to get involved, but the challenge the banks face, even though they want to help, is that they have no data they can use to compile risk profiles for these farmers. We can take data insights from our platform and through machine learning compile alternative risk scores to offer new financial solutions to farmers which will bridge the gap between traditional lending requirements and the need for small-scale farmers to access finance.
You have also launched a trading platform, PrysWys. How does it work?
It is an agricultural inputs platform, directly selling products such as seed, fertiliser and chemicals to farmers via an online marketplace.
Farmers can request a product via the platform, and we then source different quotes for that product to make sure the farmer gets it at the lowest available price, and we take a tiny margin on the sale.
Through the PrysWys platform, we plan to start running a pilot programme within the next three months, in partnership with Nedbank Commercial Banking, to assist farmers with short-term financing to acquire agricultural inputs. The pilot is part of a longer-term relationship to commercialise several fintech solutions for the agricultural industry and will include solutions for the SwiftVEE platform in the future. The programme will start with an internal client launch followed later by an external launch to market.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Q&A: Connecting remote livestock farmers to global markets
CEO Russel Luck explains how SwiftVEE is helping farmers in SA and across the rest of Africa
After launching its online livestock auction trading platform in 2019, award-winning SA agritech business SwiftVEE has emerged as one of the dominant players in the local livestock trading industry.
The business has since evolved into a software as a service (SaaS) platform with an agritech and fintech focus. It was recently chosen to go to Kenya as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Scaling Digital Agriculture Innovations through Start-ups (Sais) programme to explore scaling one of its latest products, LEANstream, across Africa to assist small-scale livestock farmers to go online and connect African livestock trading to global markets.
The company has also been recognised by Google Launchpad as the most innovative SA company from developing markets, and the UN awarded it the best e-agri platform globally for sustainability and social impact. While on the Gates Foundation Sais programme this year, SwiftVEE was announced the winner in six out of seven categories at the TT100 Awards for technology innovation.
Business Day’s Denene Erasmus spoke to SwiftVEE founder and CEO Russel Luck about how this business is helping farmers in SA and other African countries access markets and services that can ultimately help them increase their profitability and grow their businesses.
How would you describe SwiftVEE and how has the business grown since its launch?
It is a real-time livestock trading platform. We have grown to be one of the dominant players in that space. Our business has also evolved into a SaaS platforms business with an agritech and fintech focus.
Importantly, we are not an auction house; we are a software company. Livestock auction agents are our primary partners and customers, and they book us to use our online auction platform services on behalf of the farmer.
The company was started in 2016, but before launching we did two years of research & development and then launched the auctions platform in 2019.
The business has grown exponentially since its launch, and we now consistently double our revenue year on year. We are already doing more than $10m worth of trade through the platform annually.
We do several hundred auctions annually, more than there are days in the year, in SA, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe and we are busy expanding to other African countries.
Apart from SA, in which other African markets are you seeing the most growth?
Namibia is our second fastest-growing market and we have opened an office there. Namibia meets the export rules to export to high-value markets such as the UAE, Europe, US and China, and with a footprint in this market we ultimately want to create a trading hub connecting African livestock with buyers all over the world.
To sustainably grow the business and the livestock industry in Africa, you cannot just have African buyers competing against each other in a bidding environment, you need to connect African agriculture to global markers and that’s what we ultimately want to do.
We are also seeing good growth in Botswana and Zimbabwe, and we are looking at expanding to Zambia, Kenya and other African markets with our LEANstream offering, an affordable online auction solution for farmers with an auction turnover of less than R2.5m.
With LEANstream we want to connect small-scale farmers to the correct buyers and create a global trading environment for livestock farmers across SA and other African markets where we operate.
Can you explain what value your business brings to livestock farmers?
Without access to online auctions, livestock farmers in more remote areas are often left to sell their cattle at very low prices when they are forced to reduce their herds due to drought, for example. Essentially, during periods of drought — which Africa will experience more frequently as the effects of climate change become more pronounced — farmers have to feed their livestock at great cost because of poor veld conditions. When this becomes unaffordable, they resort to selling some of their livestock, but they are unlikely to find buyers in close physical proximity because those farmers would be facing the same conditions. This also means that livestock prices decline because of the high supply.
By using our technology, which can connect buyers and sellers across the country and even across borders, we offer these farmers a better marketplace where they can realise better prices for their livestock.
One of the big challenges small-scale livestock farmers in SA face is getting access to financing that could help them grow their businesses. How do your products support these farmers to ultimately achieve that growth?
We want to use our data not by selling it but to create finance solutions for these farmers. We can, for example, use the data we have to compile alternative risk scores for small-scale farmers to get them bankable and in a position to access financing through a banking partner. We want to solve the problem of the “unbanked farmer”.
If we want to see small-scale farmers grow their businesses into larger commercial operations, banks will have to get involved, but the challenge the banks face, even though they want to help, is that they have no data they can use to compile risk profiles for these farmers. We can take data insights from our platform and through machine learning compile alternative risk scores to offer new financial solutions to farmers which will bridge the gap between traditional lending requirements and the need for small-scale farmers to access finance.
You have also launched a trading platform, PrysWys. How does it work?
It is an agricultural inputs platform, directly selling products such as seed, fertiliser and chemicals to farmers via an online marketplace.
Farmers can request a product via the platform, and we then source different quotes for that product to make sure the farmer gets it at the lowest available price, and we take a tiny margin on the sale.
Through the PrysWys platform, we plan to start running a pilot programme within the next three months, in partnership with Nedbank Commercial Banking, to assist farmers with short-term financing to acquire agricultural inputs. The pilot is part of a longer-term relationship to commercialise several fintech solutions for the agricultural industry and will include solutions for the SwiftVEE platform in the future. The programme will start with an internal client launch followed later by an external launch to market.
erasmusd@businesslive.co.za
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