Digital Agriculture in LMICs - 15 Nov #35
Beanstalk projects 224M farmers using digital ag services, Digital Green shares results of gen AI Farmer.CHAT, eAgronom expands carbon credits in Africa
08/11/23
Zambia’s Good Nature Agro gets $8.5M equity investment
Zambian social enterprise Good Nature Agro has raised USD 8.5 million in equity from social impact investor Oikocredit together with co-investors Goodwell Investments and Global Partnerships/Eleos Social Venture Fund. Good Nature Agro supports 30,000 smallholder farmers in Southern Africa in growing drought-resistant, early maturing legume seed varieties, including beans, cowpeas, soyabeans and groundnuts. Its agritech-based business model encompasses access to inputs, input finance, smart and reduced fertiliser use, climate-smart training, and a guaranteed market for high-value produce. It gives farmers support to professionalise their businesses and establish a path out of poverty. With this new investment, Good Nature Agro will continue to expand with a view to increase its client base to 50,000 smallholders by 2027.
09/11/23
Ethiopia’s youth employment initiative to enhance tech adoption for 600,000+
Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation (ATI), a government agency working to improve the livelihoods of smallholders, and MasterCard Foundation announced the new Agriculture-focused Dignified Employment for Youth in Ethiopia (ADEY) programme. The initiative will target 600,000+ young Ethiopians, 80 percent of whom will be young women. ADEY builds on ATI’s flagship initiative, the Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) programme. It aims to strengthen access to improved agricultural technologies, including digital agriculture, as well as access to markets and finance. It also aims to improve the competitiveness of youth-owned MSMEs through capacity-building and skills development. In addition, ADEY plans to create an enabling environment for young people to access and create work opportunities. The plan is to invest USD 74.5 million in grants to enhance employment opportunities for young people. ATI is the organisation behind the 8028 Farmer Hotline IVR/SMS agri advisory service.
10/11/23
eAgronom onboards 200,000 hectares to African carbon credit programme
Estonia-based agritech eAgronom said that by the end of 2023 it will have onboarded 200,000 hectares of agricultural land in Africa into its carbon credit programme. The start-up has been active in Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, and Tanzania since the end of last year, with further expansion planned in Uganda and Zambia. It uses soil health tracking technology and helps smallholder farmers implement regenerative agricultural practices, improving soil quality and its carbon sink capabilities, and increasing yield over time. Its Carbon Program digital tool enables farmers to receive annual payments and support transition to sustainable practices. With 30+ on-the-ground employees, eAgronom works directly with cooperatives and farmer unions. The start-up said that in Rwanda it has mobilised 50,000+ farmers. Last June, it raised USD 5.5 million to scale its digital solutions.
11/11/23
Digital Green’s gen AI Farmer.CHAT reaches 500 extension agents in Kenya
Since launching at the beginning of September, generative AI solution Farmer.CHAT has sent 10,000+ messages to 500 extension agents in Kenya. Powered by OpenAI and developed by global development organisation Digital Green and GOOEY.AI, Farmer.CHAT is a multi-lingual AI chatbot assistant delivering tailored assistance to extension agents working with farmers. It is being implemented, besides Kenya, in the states of Bihar and Andra Pradesh in India. Farmer.CHAT uses custom videos developed by and for local farmers and real-time content, empowering extension agents to address farm-level needs. Advisory includes weather and market information tailored to local climatic conditions using large language models. Digital Green states that the cost of extension services can be brought down to as much as USD 0.35 per farmer. This contrasts with USD 35 per farmer, in a conventional model, and USD 3.5 in a video-assisted extension model.
Image credit: GOOEY.AI, Digital Green.
13/11/23
Dvara E-Registry, Amini, Spowdi awarded at WEF smart climate challenge
India’s Dvara E-Registry, Kenya’s Amini, and Sweden’s Spowdi have been awarded for their digital agriculture solutions at the Smarter Climate Farmers Challenge. The competition is organised by UpLink, the open innovation platform of the World Economic Forum with the Ministry of Economy and Planning of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The challenge has awarded 12 agritechs developing climate-smart agriculture solutions to improve food security, promote better living standards, and respond to climate change. Winners will receive targeted support, networking, and mentorship to scale their solutions.
Dvara E-Registry has a mobile and web platform dubbed Doordrishti that digitises Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) to enable access finance and climate smart advisory. It has to date reached 61,000+ farmers in 12 Indian states. Amini is building a super-powered environmental and vegetative data platform for smallholder farmers in Africa, using a combination of satellites, AI, and machine learning. Spowdi has a solar-powered mobile-based drip irrigation system for farmers in India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and South Africa. The start-up also connects farmers to a smart farming app, which provides agri-climate advisory, tracks progress, and generates data on their impact.
One that we missed…
19/10/23
BharatAgri bags $4.3M for smart farming, agri e-commerce in India
India’s BharatAgri, a digital advisory and market linkages (inputs) platform, has secured USD 4.3 million investment in a Series A funding round led by Arkam Ventures, with the participation of Capria Ventures and existing investors India Quotient, 021 Capital and Omnivore. The funding will be used to scale the agritech’s e-commerce platform connecting farmers with inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides and farming equipment, and to strengthen its last mile delivery channels. BharatAgri is also looking to open warehouses in different regions. Established in 2017, BharatAgri uses smart farming advisory to help farmer identify and procure the right type of inputs for their farms. The agritech has also developed an algorithm to offer personalised and dynamic crop calendars for farmers, satellite-based monitoring, and soil and water testing services. The company said that it has 1 million unique monthly users. It has to date raised USD 15.7 million, according to Crunchbase.
08/11/23
Good reads: New report projects 224 million farmers using digital ag in a “thriving” scenario
Consulting firm Beanstalk AgTech, a company advising businesses, investors, and government on agriculture innovation, has released its State of the Digital Agriculture Sector report focused on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The study, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), includes in-depth analyses of the state of funding and investment, gender and social inclusion, and digital climate-smart agriculture landscapes. It offers detailed regional insights across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America and The Caribbean. It also includes future outlooks and sector’s projections by 2033.
The report identifies 1,400 active digital agriculture solutions in 81 LMICs, though only ten markets represent 67% of all solutions. According to the report, there are 50 million active users, equivalent to approximately 10% of smallholder farming households in LMICs. The number of digital agriculture solutions with 1+ million registered users grew from 11 to 27 from 2018 to 2022. The report also finds that the average share of users that are female for any given digital agriculture solution is 26%. The report outlines the key actions required to realise the full potential of a thriving digital agriculture ecosystem in the next ten years, which could mean as many as 224 million farmers using digital agriculture services.