Like many other countries in the Sub-Saharan African regions, Ghana, to this day suffers from food sufficiency despite the abundance of fertile grounds for crop production.
Agriculture, a sector that contributes immensely to the country’s GDP and said to employ about 48% of the total workforce is riddled with many issues such as poor mechanization and the effects of climate change that pose a threat to its growth. This is where the role of agri-business firms come in to play.
Ghana’s population is estimated to double by 2050 and as such, the question of how to produce enough food to feed the growing population and also to export to other countries remains paramount. Through investments from financial bodies such as the WorldBank, Kosmos Innovation Center, and crowdfunding platforms, some Agri-business firms are rising to the occasion by answering the all-important question of how to achieve food sufficiency. Below are the top 10 Agri-business entrepreneurs to watch in Ghana.
10. Grow For Me
Grow For Me is an agri-tech digital platform that enables individuals to sponsor the cultivation of a selected crop to be sold to a ready market, and reap the rewards at harvest. That is, Grow For Me enables an individual to become a digital farmer without having to be physically present to farm on the land or worried about your lack of technical know-how. Grow For Me simply provides a digital platform where you can do the following;
• Select the crop you wish to grow or produce
• Pay for the crop (cost is provided per unit with farming start date and location).
• Monitor the progress of your crop each week
• Harvest your crop once your crops have reached maturity,
• Sell or order for your crop with just a click of a button and
• Enjoy the return on your investment.
Experienced farmers undertake all the farming activities on your behalf.
9. Complete Farmer
Complete Farmer is similar to Grow For Me. Founded in 2017, Complete Farmer is an agri-business firm in technology. It makes it easy for anyone to own, monitor, and manage a farm in exchange for favourable returns on investment. Complete Farmer provides a dashboard where people can invest, monitor the progress of the farm, and get paid the profit accrued after harvesting, all on their mobile devices. According to Complete Farmer’s website, farms of digital farmers “are insured against natural hazards including floods, pests, and droughts. Buyers can insure their purchased produce as it moves from farm to factory and with full traceability.”
8. SAYeTECH
SAYeTECH is a “product and a service-oriented limited liability agri-business company that designs and builds smart agricultural machinery suited for African conditions and use.” SAYeTECH has designed and developed
• Multi-Crop Thresher
• 4/6 – Tonnes Cereal Dryer
• Hammer Mills for Poultry Feed Processing
• Cereal Grain Cleaner
Its signature equipment is the Multi-crop thresher which can thresh most cereal crops grown in Africa including beans, soybean, maize, sorghum, millet. The company is helping many farmers reduce their post-harvest losses while boosting their incomes.
7. Agroseal Ghana Limited
Agroseal Ghana is an agri-business firm particularly directed at solving the problem of post-harvest losses. The company is empowering small scale farmers in the fruits and vegetable sector with an innovative technology that links farmers to restaurants, hotels, produce buying and processing companies, among others. The company helps to ensure there is a ready market for the farm produce to prevent post-harvest losses.
6. ProFish
With the lack of storage facilities, fish farmers have often complained of post-harvest losses. ProFish was established in 2018 to fill in the gap by connecting fish farmers with fish processors, retailers, and restaurants. Through its digital platform, Lojaanor, which is a Ga-language meaning “Fish Market,” fish farmers can sell their fish harvest directly to customers by simply dialing a code on their mobile phones.
Customers can also dial the shortcode to order fresh-caught fish. In 2019, ProFish won in the early-stage category of the Pitch AgriHack at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Accra, taking home €7,500.
5. DigiExt Inc.
DigiExt Inc is a Ghanaian Agriculture technology firm that provides agricultural extension services for small-scale farmers in the rural centres of Africa.
By employing sophisticated data-gathering tools like drones and satellites, real-time solutions are offered to rural farmers at low cost. Some of the services and products offered include crop health monitoring and disease surveillance, access to microcredit facilities, rent and sale of mechanized farm inputs, and the making of non-wood agro-waste paper products.
4. Agromyx
With the focus aim of eliminating post-harvest food losses in the global food supply chain and also by providing nutritious natural healthy food products, Agromyx “produces vitamins & minerals-rich food products with zero waste to tackle malnutrition and obesity.”
Thus the company “focuses on post-harvest food waste and loss of fresh produce and cereal crops by processing them to extend their shelf live without adding any preservative or additive.” The company believes in integrity, customer centricity, excellence, sustainability, and innovation.
3. AcquahMeyer Drone Tech Ltd.
Founded in 2017, AcquahMeyer Drone Tech Ltd as the name implies uses drone technology to spray plants and crops to prevent pests and diseases. Most notable is the use of farm birds scaring technology in the form of scarecrows to scar pests. The company also provides agro-input supply services for farmers.
2. Kwidex
Kwidex is a crowdfunding platform that allows Ghanaians to own part of the value chain in the agriculture sector. With an easy-to-use web interface, farmers and individuals in the agriculture sector can upload their farm or agribusiness projects for interested persons (referred to as “Contributors”) to fund the project and in return earn a sizeable income through profit sharing at the end of the project.
According to Kwidex, they “facilitate the aggregation of the money, monitoring of the projects, provision of relevant updates to contributors, and facilitation of the payment of contributors.” Kwidex helps solve the problem of capital or funding amongst farmers.
1. Ansu Pramag Farms Limited
Ansu Pramag Farms Limited is a company that specializes in the production and sale of eggs. With over 100 workforce, Ansu Pramag Farms is said to be the largest private business employer in the Jaman District. The company produces and sells products such as eggs, rabbits, pigs, and grasscutters.
