Africa has a booming agritech scene. Between 2016 and 2019, the agritech sector on the continent grew by 44 percent year-on-year with over US$19 million invested in agritech start-ups using digital technologies to build innovative solutions like AI-based analytics operations, drone and satellite services, crowdfunding interventions, and other digital services to meet the growing demand for food and ensure sustainability in the agricultural value chain.

Despite the growth and success recorded in solving a diverse range of needs in the value chain, a bulk of these agritech innovations only emphasize digitized platforms that help to connect small-scale farmers with buyers. Although digital technology can deliver scaled solutions to the challenges faced in the sector, a weakness of the agritech ecosystem is the limitation posed by a lack of adequate infrastructure that is required to operationalize interventions and service delivery. As a result, agritech start-ups have less capacity to address the core challenges in the value chain, especially for small-scale farmers.

The challenges posed by these infrastructural dearths make up a core aspect of the work of enabling efficient agriculture on the continent. Agritech innovations in Africa that attempt to leapfrog addressing physical infrastructure gaps are severely hampered in their operational capacities either immediately or down the line as the scale is attained. Still, these infrastructure gaps are notoriously difficult to fill, requiring agritech companies to seek out significant patient capital and necessary partnerships.

In celebration of World Food Day 2022, AFEX launched a 100,000MT/ year Grain Quality Enhancement Center with a 30,000 MT storage capacity warehouse in Kaduna State, Nigeria. As one of Africa’s leading private commodities market players, AFEX has always combined the core platform trading structure of its business, which is heavily supported by technology, with a focus on addressing the need for infrastructure through storage and distribution solutions for Africa’s small-scale farmers and the larger supply chain. The new infrastructure investment by AFEX is set to strengthen quality criteria in grain value chains and improve the livelihoods of primary producers who can earn higher incomes on better-quality grains. News of such infrastructure wins remains as vital to the agricultural sector in Africa as they have always been, especially, when coming from heavily technology-enabled agriculture companies.

Agritech innovations built to match Africa’s current realities need to be hinged on three key pillars of infrastructure, market knowledge, and then technology. Of the three, infrastructure seems to be a key missing piece in solutions that seek to reorganize fragmented food systems in Africa. Small-scale farmers’ ability to benefit significantly from digital technologies still depends on the infrastructure and market structures readily available to support their production activities.

The scalability and sustainability of current and future agritech solutions in Africa could be dependent on the coupling of infrastructure solutions with innovative technology and localized market knowledge to realize actual game-changing effects for the agricultural sector on the continent.