Driving Growth: Expanding Capital and Opportunity for Women in AgTech

Haile: I'm an entrepreneur, I've been working in Agtech for the last 10 years on the continent. So I moved to Nigeria in 2015 when I Co-founded Hello Tractor. Hello Tractor is a tractor co-sharing platform which is linking tractor owners across the continent to farmers. They've reached over a million farmers to date.

Sanola: What are the challenges and opportunities you see for women-led AgTech firms? What are the needs also for women farmers and producers, and how can these AgTech firms address those needs?

Haile: I think in terms of women founders with an AgTech, we need a lot more of them. And part of that is going to be about capital deployment. So how do women founders really access the capital that they need to be able to grow and scale? Because without enough capital, it's very hard to scale an AgTech company in one country, let alone, you know, multiple countries.

Sanola: How do you think more investors, more multinationals, more DF can be involved in improving the access to AgTech solutions for women, farmers, producers, processors? How can they help the ecosystem to grow?

Haile:
I think capital is really important. I also think community is important. There's a lot of changes. The industry is very fast moving, so building a community where they can really come together, and kind of share experiences and lessons learned is very key.

I think when it comes to women across the rest of the ecosystem, whether it's farmers or processors, women-led processors, I think that there needs to be a bigger effort in, in regards to inclusion. There's not enough equity within the agricultural supply chains. We need a lot more of that R&D money into the African market so that we can figure out what's going to work within a local context.

Related Links

• IFC's work in Agribusiness
• The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program