Analysing Lersha’s Phygital Business Model Unlocking Growth Opportunities Through Climate Smart Bundled Packages for Women Farmers

Lersha is a digital and agent-enabled agricultural services platform operated by Green Agro Solution PLC. It aims to become a one-stop marketplace connecting Ethiopia’s smallholder farmers, including women farmers, to a comprehensive range of agricultural, financial, and market services.

Through its network of more than 2,500 local agents, mobile applications, and multilingual call centres, Lersha connects farmers to:

• High-quality inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, and agrochemicals
• Mechanization services including ploughing, irrigation, and harvesting
  
• Access to finance, including short-term input loans and insurance solutions
  
• Climate-smart advisory services, such as weather alerts and agronomy guidance
  
• Market linkages, including offtake agreements and aggregated sales to buyers
  

The platform is active in six regions in Ethiopia and is expanding to Kenya and Uganda.

Lersha’s business model is built on three key pillars:

1. A bundled service offering tailored to farmers’ needs
2. A commission-based agent network
   
3. A digital ecosystem of interconnected applications and dashboards that enable data-driven service delivery
   

Vegetable production in Ethiopia is predominantly led by smallholder farmers, cultivating on average 0.125 hectares. Women represent around 40% of vegetable producers. However, women farmers typically achieve 30-40% lower yields than men and face constraints such as limited access to quality inputs, high post-harvest losses estimated at 30-40%, and restricted access to finance and advisory services.

The Inclusive Business Analysis highlights several key findings:

1. Women represent 28% of Lersha’s active users, despite accounting for 19% of total registered farmers, indicating relatively strong engagement among registered women farmers.
2. Women farmers particularly value market linkages and advisory services, followed by information services. Access to quality seeds and fertilizers is also recognized as important to improving productivity.
   
3. Based on the analysis, farmers using Lersha’s bundled services could achieve yield increases of 10-20% for crops such as cabbage, potato, tomato, and onion. Improved and timely market linkages could reduce post-harvest losses from approximately 35% to 20%. Combined, these improvements could increase farmers’ marketable surplus by around 40%. In the case of cabbage cultivation, this translates into a potential 2.5 times increase in net income per season, equivalent to approximately USD 82. Coupling credit with market linkages can also contribute to smoother cash flows throughout the year and reduce reliance on savings.
   
4. The analysis further suggests that vegetable value chains can be commercially attractive for Lersha. Compared to staple crops, vegetables typically involve two to three crop cycles per year, generating higher potential revenue per farmer. Increased farmer engagement combined with commission income through strong market linkages could contribute significantly to Lersha’s future revenue growth.
   
5. The IBA also identifies opportunities to strengthen logistics for market linkage, develop crop-specific risk assessment approaches, test agent retention measures, and design tailored solutions for women farmers, such as savings products and climate insurance linked to weather indicators.