In this edition of Business Day Spotlight, our focus is on a local start-up bringing a touch of technology to how farmers find buyers for their produce.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Karidas Tshintsholo, co-founder of Khula Agriculture Technology, a digital marketplace bringing small and large scale farmers together with customers on one platform.

In this discussion Tshintsholo explains why and how the business was started. He says with about 60% of the world’s arable land located in Africa, it made no sense to Tshintsholo and his partners why so much food is being imported.

The farming app Khula won the best agriculture solution at the MTN Business Awards in 2018. This, Tshintsholo says, raised the profile of their company in a big way and had helped to garner much interest from the investment community.

He explains that Khula has been operating in a pilot form for the last two years with plans to officially launch in the coming 12 to 18 months. The reason for this was to make sure they have a tried and tested business model when the platform is made open to the public.

Khula currently has about 3000 emerging farmers and over 100 commercial producers on its platform.

The Khula team has been to a number of countries in an effort to learn from other technology players, as well as trying to attract much needed investment. The discussion ends with Tshintsholo taking time to lament the challenges around funding and financing for technology start-ups in the local market.

Listen in to hear the full discussion and thoughts around these and other questions.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.