Agriculture remains one of Nigeria’s most reliable economic engines. The sector contributes roughly 24 per cent of the country’s national GDP, underscoring how deeply farming is woven into the Nigeria’s livelihood and food systems.
Yet for the millions of smallholder farmers who power this sector, cash is still the primary currency. Payments are informal, often delayed, and rarely tied to formal financial institutions. That landscape is beginning to change. A wave of fintech innovation is gradually digitalizing how farmers receive payments, access credit, and build verifiable financial profiles.
A survey of 1,374 farmers by research firm 60 Decibels, covering the 2023 and 2024 farming seasons, illustrates how slow but significant this transition has been.
READ ALSO: Transparent Digital Lending Key to Achieving Nigeria’s $1 Trillion Economic Ambition — FairMoney MFB Boss
Only 35 per cent of farmers knew about digital agriculture services. Two in five had used at least one such service before, yet a mere 5 per cent had used digital tools for core financial activities like receiving payments or registering transactions. Awareness of digital credit was only 20 per cent, and insurance awareness fell into the single digits. Even among the farmers who had heard of these products, understanding remained shallow, often shaped more by word-of-mouth than direct experience.
Why adoption remains slow
The gap between awareness and actual use is tied to deeper structural challenges:
Patchy network coverage across rural communities
High smartphone and data costs, excluding many from app-based solutions
User hesitation, especially toward systems perceived as complex or impersonal
The survey also showed that 64 per cent of farmers who did use digital services did so through basic mobile calls and even not smartphone apps or agent networks. That limits the sophistication of services available but highlights the enduring importance of low-bandwidth, simple tools in rural economies.
Even with such modest adoption, financial experts say digital payment rails are already reshaping parts of the agricultural value chain. Digital transactions create a data trail for purchase records, sales receipts, payment histories—that lenders can use to assess creditworthiness in a sector where traditional collateral is scarce.
Cash to Card: How Fintechs Are Reimagining Rural Payments
Several Nigerian agritech and fintech companies are now designing systems that reflect the realities of rural life. These platforms connect farmers to buyers, input suppliers, extension agents, and financial institutions essentially stitching together the fragmented agricultural ecosystem.
Crop2Cash, for instance, has built some of the most extensive digital infrastructure for rural communities. The company says it has supported more than 500,000 farmers across 13 states. Its CashCard, a simple digital payment tool, enables farmers to store value, receive payments, and build transaction histories without needing a smartphone.
Support from the GSMA has helped the platform scale. As of 2025, GSMA reported that more than 80,000 farmers use Crop2Cash’s USSD channel for input financing, advisory services, and weather updates. The platform has also facilitated $2.8 million in credit to smallholders.
Another major player, ThriveAgric, has leveraged digital payment systems and structured offtake contracts to expand financing for farmers. In its 2023 impact report, the organisation said it disbursed $40 million in loans to more than 273,000 farmers, enabling the production of over 2.3 million metric tonnes of grain across multiple value chains.
AgroMall, one of the earliest agritech firms to scale nationally, has built a robust digital ecosystem connecting farmers to markets, buyers and data-driven tools. The company has previously reported over 530,000 registered farmers and continues to expand its marketplace and mobile engagement solutions.
These platforms are far from achieving full-scale digital trading, but they give farmers improved price visibility, access to structured markets, and opportunities to aggregate demand for cheaper input purchases—a notable upgrade from Nigeria’s informal, unpredictable market systems.
A sector in transition, not yet transformed
National economic trends are also nudging the sector forward. Agriculture grew by 1.76 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2024 and contributed 25.59 per cent to GDP, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Even so, digital tools remain far from mainstream.
The 60 Decibels study showed that while 65 per cent of farmers sell their own produce, only 4 per cent use digital tools to find buyers or negotiate prices. Many still travel long distances to local markets or rely on middlemen who set prices on their own terms. Common complaints include unstable networks, platform fees, and distrust of digital dispute resolution.
Women face even steeper barriers. GSMA data shows that nearly 60 per cent of rural women do not use mobile internet at all, limiting their participation in emerging digital services.
These constraints reflect three persistent hurdles: infrastructure, digital literacy, and affordability. Yet progress is visible wherever fintech companies and agricultural organisations collaborate closely.
More cooperatives are adopting digital wallets for shared savings. Some agribusinesses now use digital ledgers to document grain deliveries. Extension agents are introducing weather, agronomy and advisory tools accessible through simple USSD menus. Each incremental change builds familiarity, lowers risk, and chips away at the dominance of cash.
The road ahead
Nigeria’s agricultural digitalization is unfolding slowly, shaped by economic realities as much as by innovation. But the direction is clear: digital finance is beginning to unlock opportunities that were inaccessible in a cash-only world. As more farmers build digital footprints however small they gain visibility in markets that once overlooked them.
What emerges is not just a story about payments, but about inclusion. And as more fintech solutions adapt to rural realities rather than the other way around, the shift from cash to digital could become one of the most consequential transformations in Nigeria’s agricultural future.
Comments 2