South African agri-tech startup swiftVEE has launched a new app – PrysWys – aimed at reducing input costs for farmers.
swiftVee is an online livestock trading platform, and PrysWys leverages off its established customer base of approximately 100,000 commercial farmers.
The app offers users a digital request form where farmers can list multiple products required for their farming operation and receive price quotations electronically.
swiftVee began beta testing PrysWys towards the end of 2022, and already has over 1,000 active users. Since launching in January 2023, it has sold several million rands of products online.
“PrysWys was developed to curb the rising input costs for farmers in the current economic climate,” said Russel Luck, CEO of swiftVEE.
“Following our success in the online livestock trading space, we have noticed that farmers pay high premiums for their inputs at brick-and-mortar retailers. We believe there is a lot of unnecessary bloat in the traditional supply of inputs. Your average farmer purchasing inputs from retailers absorbs the costs of retail space, storage facilities, staff overheads and inefficient manual processes. This can add 50 per cent onto the supply of inputs before the retailer has even added their margin. Rising petrol prices and product scarcity caused by the war in Ukraine has aggravated the high input prices paid by most farmers. We believe digital technology is the best way to solve this problem.”
