Six youth-led agribusinesses showcasing market-ready innovations for African farmers – which include mobile crop processing machinery, produce delivery services and e-commerce and farm financing platforms – won a share of the US$45,000 Pitch AgriHack 2021 competition today at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF).

The companies, which now have an opportunity to attract new investments via the AGRF Agribusiness Deal Room, were competing in three categories: Early-stage, Mature/Growth-stage, and Women-led.

In a fourth, invitation-only category, known as the AYuTe Africa Challenge (bit.ly/3DXVmLi), US$1.5 million in grants were awarded to two youth-led agritech businesses that are increasing access to emerging technologies for smallholder farmers across Africa to grow their businesses and incomes.

The Pitch AgriHack competition, aimed exclusively at youth-led African businesses bringing technological innovation to the agriculture sector, is sponsored by Heifer International (www.Heifer.org) and hosted by Generation Africa (ww.GenAfrica.org), a thematic platform of the AGRF.

“The youth of Africa have a crucial role to play in our continent’s food and farming future. Food systems change is one of the most pressing global issues as humanity negotiates a new balance with the natural world amidst the undeniable impacts of climate change,” said Dr Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA (AGRA.org) and Special Envoy to the UN Food Systems Summit. “Pitch AgriHack is a wonderful initiative that awards youth-led innovative agricultural businesses. At the intersection of technology and agriculture, new innovations have the capacity to enable and uplift smallholder farmers, and drive agricultural transformation across Africa.”

The Pitch AgriHack Winners for 2021:

The winners of the three open competition categories are:

Early-Stage category:

Winner – Jeffrey Appiagyei of SAYeTECH Company Limited in Ghana. Jeffrey’s company designs and manufactures climate-smart agricultural machinery that increases productivity of smallholder farmers (www.SAYeTECH.io/)

Runner-up – Gabriel Eze of Rural Farmers Hub in Nigeria. Gabriel’s company provides agricultural services with a core product, called Capture™ (www.RuralFarmersHub.com).

Mature- and Growth-Stage category:

Pitch AgriHack is a wonderful initiative that awards youth-led innovative agricultural businesses

Winner – Mahmud Johnson of J Palm in Liberia. Mahmud’s company has created innovative labour-saving technology for Liberia’s smallholder farmers, helping them to produce wild palm oil more profitably and efficiently, while not contributing to deforestation or animal habitat destruction (www.KernelFreshPremium.com/)

Runner-up – Gladys Amiandamhen of Farmcrowdy Limited in Nigeria. Farmcrowdy has developed a technology ecosystem called Farmgate with various innovative software products, to help farmers maximize their output and increase their profits (www.FarmCrowdy.com/)

Women-led Agribusiness category:

Winner – Ore Alemede of GrowAgric in Kenya. Ore’s company provides a full technology end-to-end solution that optimizes the entire agriculture value chain, providing small and medium-scale farmers with training, marketing linkages and accessible working capital (www.GrowGgric.com/)

Runner-up – Nomaliso Musasiwa of Fresh In A box in Zimbabwe. Nomaliso’s company offers an innovative e-commerce platform that connects smallholder and urban farmers of fresh local produce as well as other food products with customers locally and globally enabling payments to be made from anywhere in the world, an important feature linking diaspora family members with loved ones at home (www.FreshinaBox.co.zw/).

Winners of the Invite-Only AYuTe Africa Challenge run by Heifer International:

ColdHubs – solar powered cold storage for developing countries (www.coldhubs.com)
Hello Tractor – connecting farmers to nearby tractor owners via a mobile app (www.HelloTractor.com)

“Pitch AgriHack and the AYuTe Africa Challenge support youth-led technological innovation in the agriculture sector. We believe that the agricultural sector has the potential to provide future jobs for Africa’s growing youth population, while advancing the continent’s food security agenda,” said Adesuwa Ifedi, Senior Vice President for Africa Programs at Heifer International.

The Pitch AgriHack 2021 (https://bit.ly/2WYsQZm) winners will receive continued support as they develop and grow their enterprises. Individual profiles have been made public on the genafrica.org platform and reviewed for relevance to their investor community.

Nearly 600 business owners from 37 African countries applied to the competition. Countries represented at the finals at the AGRF Summit were Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

“Generation Africa is proud to be the host of Pitch AgriHack 2021. Competitions like this, and the entrepreneurial communities that are shaped around them, give young agripreneurs access to the tools and expertise they need to make their businesses successful,” said Head of Generation Africa, Dickson Naftali.

A seasoned panel of food systems experts with extensive experience across the African agrifood and technology sectors served as judges.

“Seeing the ideas that are coming from young entrepreneurs across Africa makes me very excited about the future of agriculture on our continent,” said Ebunoluwa Bolodeoku, Head of Business Transformation for Africa at Heifer International, and Pitch AgriHack judge.

The judges for the 2021 Pitch AgriHack competition were:

Ebunoluwa Bolodeoku – Head Transformation, Africa – Heifer International
Elisée Kamanzi – Country Director, Rwanda, Heifer International
William Matovu – Country Director, Uganda, Heifer International
Ken Lohento – Digital Innovation Strategy Consultant, FAO
Nixon Gecheo – Senior Program Officer – Digital Systems & Solutions for Agriculture, AGRA
Barbra Muzata – Communications and Brand Leader, Africa Middle East - Corteva Agriscience
Grace Vuhya Obeda – Principal Youth Employment Expert at African Development Bank
Hafou Touré-Samb – SME Development and Finance Specialist also from African Development Bank

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of AgriHouse Foundation.