Drivers and barriers of a platform-based business model in agriculture: The case of Apollo Agriculture

Journal article (2022)

Authors

Erwin van Tuijl International Centre for Frugal Innovation, International Institute of Social Studies
Mariam Basajja Universiteit Leiden, International Centre for Frugal Innovation
J.C. Intriago Zambrano International Centre for Frugal Innovation, Water Resources - CEG
Peter Knorringa International Institute of Social Studies, International Centre for Frugal Innovation
Research Group
Water Resources (CEG) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2022 Erwin van Tuijl, Mariam Basajja, J.C. Intriago Zambrano, Peter Knorringa
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2022

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Civil Engineering & Geosciences

Department

Water Management

Research Group

Water Resources

Abstract

The platform economy largely focuses on consumer platforms such as Uber and Airbnb, whereas business-to-business platforms receive less attention.1 This article2 discusses Apollo Agriculture, a Kenyan-Dutch agro-tech platform that aims to support small farmers (‘smallholders’) in rural Africa to set up commercial business through a bundled input loan that they can use to obtain agricultural inputs. These smallholders are normally unattractive as customers due to their small size and high-risk profiles (e.g., limited chance of repaying loans). Apollo tries to support smallholders with an innovative platform-based business model.