Charting a new digital path: Tech startups, agribusinesses join forces in Ghana

Digital technologies are becoming an increasingly critical part of agribusinesses' strategies to grow and trade, especially as farmers and processors look to adapt to shifting weather patterns and prepare for natural disasters caused by climate change.

Consumers and buyers are also expressing a growing interest in sustainable and better-quality food products, along with concrete proof of how these were made.

Meeting these demands and complying with the growing number of trade-related environmental regulations and sustainability standards now on offer can be a big lift for smallholder farmers and processors. But agri-tech startups are playing a big role in closing the gap, including in Ghana, where these companies are pioneering digital solutions to improve traceability along supply chains, make financing easier to obtain, and help farmers manage their daily work.

The next step is to make sure that agri-tech startups and agribusinesses have a chance to talk to each other directly, as otherwise the technological solutions available may not solve the right problems. But with many of these startups being Accra-based, they often have limited opportunities and resources to venture out into the field and meet with agribusinesses themselves.

As part of ITC's work under the Netherlands Trust Fund (NTF) V programme, ITC has been setting up field trips between agri-tech startups, farmers, and processors, with visits involving the cocoa sector taking place in 2022 and those involving the horticulture sector in 2023. The latter included visits to see pineapple growers, ginger farms, fruit processors, and more in Kumasi.

That excursion was organized together with the Dutch Embassy in Accra, tropical seed provider EastWestSeed, and horticultural company Holland Green Tech, with the participation of the Ghana Netherlands Business and Culture Council and support from Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

'We joined to get firsthand information from the farmers about what the challenges are and how we can adapt this games platform to help address [them],' said Henry Kwamena Baffoe, Managing Director of BigData Ghana. Visiting several farms helped show both their differences, but also common challenges they face like access to credit and other forms of finance. This, in turn, helped his company make the necessary tweaks to its technology.

Other tech startups have told ITC that these trips helped give context to post-harvest losses, such as the lack of cold storage solutions or poor road infrastructure. That, in turn, has helped companies like AkoFresh design refrigeration solutions to help prevent this kind of damage.

Mawuli K. Addo, who serves as the Impact Lead for the online platform Grow For Me, which specializes in areas like trading and input and commodity financing, confirmed that without these visits, it is easy to 'miss something in the chain-from production to sourcing in the commodities.'

Other tech startups involved in the field visits have expertise ranging from fintech to data collection, the latter of which is crucial for helping farmers and processors compile the information they need to comply with environmental regulations and standards.

The NTF V work in Ghana is not just looking at what agribusinesses and tech start-ups need, however. It also involves engaging with policymakers so they have a sense of what is needed to help the agricultural sector grow and flourish. A major component of the project involves working with the Ghana Cocoa Board, for instance, to look at how climate change, trade-related environmental regulations, and other developments are affecting cocoa producers, and how solutions like dynamic agroforestry and digital traceability systems can help. In parallel, ITC is also supporting a private-public dialogue to shape the future Startup Act of Ghana to scale the benefits of digital entrepreneurship across the country.

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