Agriculture is the main sector in most African countries. Tech entrepreneurs are stepping in to improve living conditions in this vital sector of the concerned economies.

Iwolonet is a digital solution developed by a Cameroonian startup. It is a business space where farmers can showcase their products online to attract buyers.  

Via its Android app, farmers can register to access its services. They can also do so via its web platforms.

With their account, they can post their products, see the products posted by other users and connect with buyers and suppliers.

On Playstore, the app has been donloaded more than 10,000 times. Users present on the platform inlcude international companies, cooperatives and associations.

Adoni Conrad Quenum

She got her agritech business idea during an academic internship. With some of her classmates, she developed a system to reduce the post-harvest losses incurred by smallholder farmers in her country. Thanks to her system, she has earned several awards and recognitions. 

Sara Benlafqih (photo) is a Moroccan industrial management engineer. She is also the CEO and one of the co-founders of agritech startup BMTA&C which develops innovative solutions to challenges like access to energy and food insecurity. 

Through BMTA&C, she created a storage unit to help farmers extend the shelf life of their crops from 2 to 20 days. The unit uses a solar cooling system to help smallholder farmers in remote areas reduce crop losses in Morocco and the sub-region. 

The said unit was inspired by a discovery Sara made during an academic internship. Indeed, she found out that farmers used to lose almost one-third of their harvest yearly just because they had no storage facility. The storage unit she created can now store up to six tons of fruit and vegetables without using coolants, which are harmful to the environment. 

“By giving access to clean, reliable, and affordable energy, our technology promotes food security, fights climate change, and improves farmers’ livelihoods,” Sara told Forbes in early 2022. 

Before launching BMTA&C, the CEO who holds an MSc in industrial management engineering interned at various companies and organizations. In June 2017, she was a blue-collar intern at OCP SA, a mineral exploration firm. The following month, she spent a two-week summer internship at Cardiff Metropolitan University. In April 2018, she took on a 1-month shadowing internship at the mining firm Group Managem. 

From June to August 2018, she was an engineering intern at the Portuguese group Águas de Portugal (AdP). Her last internship was in 2019 with an end-of-studies internship at the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, where she got her MSc in industrial management engineering. 

In 2017, she was a speaker at the Dean’s Forum held at MINES ParisTech. The following year, she was also a speaker at the Economy Days, in Lyon, Paris, where the discussions revolve around the growth of the digital sector in Africa. 

Nominated for the Aviram Awards - Tech for Humanity launched by the Aviram Family Foundation and Forbes to celebrate the most impactful startups in the Middle East and North Africa in 2022, Sara Benlafqih's startup participated in the four-month accelerator program, MassChallenge Switzerland 2022. In 2021, it was in third place in the EDF Pulse Africa 2021 innovation competition and was the Grand Prize winner of the Global Food Challenge.

Melchior Koba

In African countries, small-scale farmers contribute a significant portion of the food supply. They are nevertheless affected by several problems including lack of funding, post-harvest, and yield losses. In Ethiopia, a tech entrepreneur has decided to tackle the issue of yield loss by leveraging digital technologies.

Lersha is a digital solution developed by an Ethiopian eponymous startup. It allows access to agricultural inputs for farmers and helps them hire mechanization services and request dynamic agro-climatic advice.

Smallholder farmers can access its services via its mobile app and call center. Once farmers download its app, they need to register their accounts by providing some personal information. The startup has also dispatched agents to familiarize farmers with the tools and services it offers. Via those agents, the farmers can also access its services.

Currently, Lersha has identified more than 44,160 farmers. It has deployed over 88 agents to manage those farmers and added more than 172 mechanization service providers to its database. Its Android app has been downloaded more than 500 times according to stats shown by PlayStore, the official Android Appstore.

In 2022, Lersha was among the eight startups selected for the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) Innovation Fund which aims to support solutions that boost low-income and vulnerable communities’ capacity to adapt to, anticipate or absorb climate-related shocks or stresses.

Adoni Conrad Quenum

The trained accountant chose to venture into the agritech sector by developing an e-commerce platform that sells fresh fruits and vegetables. The venture has already earned him local and international recognition.

Elia Timotheo (photo) is a Certified Professional Accountant who graduated from the Tanzanian National Board of Accountants and Auditors (NBAA) in 2018. He is also the founder and CEO of East Africa (EA) Fruits Co. a food distribution company that aims mission to improve the lives of tens of thousands of Tanzanian farmers and small businesses.

EA Fruits, which was launched in 2013,  wants to reduce post-harvest losses by collecting, processing, storing -thanks to cold chain technologies when needed- and distributing agricultural products.  On its online platform, the company markets all types of food, from cereals to fresh fruits and vegetables...

“Roughly half of what farmers produce never reaches the market, and this loss is spread out across the farm-to-market value chain. First, farmers may lack the knowledge and training to properly care for their farms, produce and harvests, resulting in 20 to 25 percent of losses. Second, farmers sell produce to brokers who use inappropriate vehicles to transport perishable produce, leading to another 10 percent of losses. Lastly, in the market, it’s very difficult to sell all the produce in one day or even two, yet there are no storage facilities for a truckload of produce that just spent days travelling hundreds of miles in inadequate conditions. All this results in severe losses for farmers who fail to reap the fruits of their hard work,” Elias said in 2020 while explaining the rationale behind the creation of EA Fruits.

“To change this, East Africa Fruits establishes a relationship with smallholder farmers and provides training, food processing, storage and market access using cold-storage transportation. This process extends the shelf-life of produce and reduces post-harvest losses,” he added.

Since 2008, the trained accountant is a member of the advisory board of Changbay Sonic Hotels in Tanzania. In 2013, he co-founded the processing and distribution company AMEJ Investment Limited. Three years earlier, he had co-founded 7 Stars Computers Limited, an “affordable” computer marketing firm when he “realized that computers and laptops had vital importance to college students and they would not afford to buy by then.”  

The serial entrepreneur kicked off his professional career, in 2010, by joining the foreign exchange bureau Kibo Palace Group as an exchange manager, sales assistant, and customer relations officier. In December 2011, he worked for the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security, and Cooperatives as a field representative. Some 12 months later, he joined the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs as a junior accountant.

Thanks to EA Fruits, he has received several awards and recognitions, including the African Entrepreneurship and the SEED Africa Awards in 2015. This year he was also one of the 50 finalists of Africa’s Business Heroes.

Melchior Koba

He strongly believes that empowering African smallholder farmers will create more value and be helpful for the whole population. 

Joseph Ogwal (photo) is a Ugandan agricultural entrepreneur and the founder/CEO of Agro Supply Ltd, an agritech company founded in 2017. Through his agritech company, he developed and operates a mobile savings platform that enables farmers to save and invest in seeds, inputs, and equipment. The platform is accessible via a USSD code to reach everyone, even those without smartphones.   

“[...] The Global population is rising which requires 60% more food to feed nine billion people by 2050. Farmers can be and should be a key part of the solution. If farmers can manage their cash and invest their resources in their farms, they will not only increase food production but will also pave their own and their families’ way out of poverty. With access to a mobile savings tool, we know farmers can self-finance the inputs and training they need to provide for their families and to break the cycle of poverty,” says Joseph Ogwal. 

He also offers, through the agritech company, vital information and agronomy training remotely (either via SMS or an AI system) or in person. He also networks his community of some 15,000 farmers (currently) with large buyers to facilitate production sales at better prices. 

Before Agro Supply Ltd, Joseph Ogwal, who holds a bachelor's in Agronomy and Crop Science, sharpened his agricultural expertise while working as a regional value chain manager for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). 

He is an alumnus of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program, the Young African Leaders Initiative, and a 2018 Swedish Institute Management Programme Africa Fellow. He is also among the entrepreneurs whose startups have been selected for the Social & Inclusive Business Camp 2022.

Melchior Koba

As she explains, she entered the agritech sector to help farmers improve their income. The choice proves sound as she is now a multiple award winner thanks to her ventures. 

Anaporka Adazabra (photo) is a Ghanaian tech entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of agritech company Farmio Limited.  Her agritech company, launched in July 2019, provides digital solutions for greenhouse farming. Thanks to its farm management software, it provides users with real-time access to agronomic information essential for crop selection and planning. 

The software also assists in resources, operations, and finance management. Thanks to its Greenhouse Automation Kit, Farmio Limited also enables farmers to remotely monitor their greenhouses and crops. It also provides an online marketplace for its clients to sell their crops.  

For Adazabra, who also offers greenhouse farming training, the aim is to  "help new and existing greenhouse farmers improve their production and income." 

She launched Farmio Limited a few months before taking on the role of business development manager at Inkeit Innovation, an IT company she co-founded in 2019. The said company specializes in website and software development, and language (French and German) teaching.  

Before embarking on her entrepreneurial journey, Anaporka Adazabra worked at Dansyn Innovation Social Organization's web technology and social media office between 2018 and 2021. Thanks to her entrepreneurial ventures, she won the 2022 Best Female Entrepreneur Award at the TotalEnergies Startupper of the Year Challenge. She is also a finalist for the Best Women-Led Agribusiness Award at the AgriHack Pitch sponsored by the Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) and Heifer International.

Melchior Koba

The tech solution networks farmers, agronomists, and buyers to allow access to agricultural advisory and improve producers’ income. 

Wagui is a digital app developed by a Gabonese eponymous startup, founded in 2018, by Marlyse Mapaga and Tamarah Moutotekema Boussamba. It offers useful recommendations to help farmers improve their production and income.  

“By creating Wagui, I wanted to address the networking problems faced by farmers and producers but also improve their revenues. My aim was also to facilitate access to the agricultural advisory. Wagui can be improved thanks to users’ feedback. Our challenge is to include everyone into the value chains,”  indicates Tamarah Moutotekema Boussamba.

Wagui networks farmers, buyers, and agronomists. It was born from the experience of one of its team’s relative who was able to pinpoint the problems faced in the agricultural sector. Currently, it is accessible via an Android app only. 

In 2018, Wagui received the second prize for the best technology solution at the Africa Code Hackathon competition held in Egypt. The following year, it joined the Gabon Digital Incubation Company, a public company whose ambition is to boost “African companies’ competitiveness through digital transformation.”  

Adoni Conrad Quenum

Artificial intelligence helps address numerous economic challenges. In the agriculture sector, which is the main source of employment and livelihood in developing countries, it contributes to the improvement of agritech solutions. 

Agrix Tech is a digital platform developed by the eponymous Cameroonian agritech startup. The app helps small farmers efficiently treat plant diseases, control weeds, and fight crop pests thanks to artificial intelligence. 

According to Agrix Tech founder Adamou Nchange Kouotou, “in developing countries, most small farmers are self-taught with no proper skills in the management of crop diseases and pests.” 

Hence the development of Agrix Tech. The platform has an Android app that allows farmers to register for its services. To get plant disease management recommendations, farmers scan the affected plants using the Agrix Tech app and let the startup automatically analyze the video collected and send adequate recommendations.  

The platform can also help farmers determine the best crops for a said soil, the best farm maintenance techniques, and best practices. To allow farmers with low literacy, or even illiterates, to access its services, the app integrates speech and text recognition technology that can identify several local languages. 

The startup offers its services to small farmers for free. But, to generate revenues for its operations, it sells ad spaces and user licenses to agriculture consulting firms. 

Adoni Conrad Quenum

Africa’s agriculture sector is still largely under-exploited despite the important volume of arable lands on the continent. Some of the problems contributing to that fact are poor agricultural practices and traditional cultivation methods. To address the problems in that vital sector, startups are developing innovative solutions. 

Wefly is an Ivorian agritech startup founded in 2017 by Joseph-Olivier Biley and purchased by Jool International in 2021. Thanks to its agricultural engineers and its tech solutions, the startup allows users to set up, manage and optimize plantations. To fulfill its mission, it developed several products including WeFly GIS.

WeFly GIS is the digital solution developed by the agritech to provide farm owners (notably those who are unable to devote their whole time to exploitation tasks) with adequate tools to optimize their productions.  Among other things, the solution - accessible through a web and mobile platform-  allows the collection, analysis, and storage of farm exploitation data. It also enables farm owners to geo-locate their workers, trace production and timely identify exploitation problems.  The startup also offers drone services like weather forecasting, soil needs, and cartography.  

To access its services, farm owners must first register by providing a set of information including the type of exploitation (a cooperative or a sole-ownership), contact details, and farm location.  Then the user needs to buy annual licenses. 

Adoni Conrad Quenum

In about eight years, he succeeded in making Farmerline a choice partner for Ghanaian smallholder farmers. His ambition is to do the same in the whole of Africa in the coming years.

Ghanaian entrepreneur Alloysius Attah (photo, left) is the co-founder and CEO of AgTech Farmerline. Co-founded in 2013 with Emmanuel Owusu Addai (photo, left), his startup supports farmers’ growth and performance with a combination of digital and logistics tools. It specifically improves farmers’ access to market information, farm inputs, and funds. 

The tech entrepreneur graduated from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in 2012, with a BSc in Natural Resource Management.  In 2021, he obtained the Standford Seed Transformation Program Certificate from the Standford University Graduate School of Business. 

Thanks to Farmerline, Alloysius Attah was one of the seven finalists for the 2014 Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards. In 2015, he was a guest lecturer at the Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellows Program, Cornell University, New York. The same year, his dynamism secured Farmerline a spot in the European Union’s CTA Top 20 Innovations that Benefit Smallholder Farmers. In November 2021, the young entrepreneur was one of the speakers invited to the  Bloomberg New Economy Forum organized under the theme “Feeding the World: Agriculture and the Health of the Planet.” 

In about eight years, he succeeded in making Farmerline a choice partner for Ghanaian smallholder farmers. His ambition is to do the same in the whole of Africa in the coming years. For that purpose, in April 2022, he secured US$12.9 million in pre-Series A funding. US$6.4 million was invested by Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, Greater Impact Foundation, and Dutch Development Bank FMO. The remaining US$6.5 million was secured as debt participation from DEG, Rabobank, Ceniarth, Rippleworks, Mulago Foundation, Whole Planet Foundation, Netri Foundation, and Kiva. 

“With this new investment, we will scale the AI capabilities within Farmerline’s Mergdata platform to help increase the income of farmers and agribusinesses; supporting them to access farm inputs; supplying them with assets such as tricycles, tractors, and threshers; and connecting them to global markets,” Mr. Attah said. The startup also plans to deepen its relations with Ivorian partners. 

Melchior Koba