Nigerian agritech Agrorite seeks to empower smallholder farmers with a range of innovative solutions.
Agrorite, a Nigerian digital agriculture platform, seeks to enhance farmers’ productivity and to improving their livelihoods. According to founder and CEO, Ayodele Toyosi, the organization’s mission is to address post-harvest waste and market access challenges faced by smallholder farmers in Africa.
Leveraging technology, Agrorite has successfully produced and traded significant volumes of agricultural commodities globally, while engaging over 300,000 smallholder farmers in Nigeria. The company’s achievements have been recognized through various awards and acknowledgments.
Agrorite: Empowering farmers through innovation
Toyosi underscored the organization’s dedication to uplifting smallholder farmers and making a positive impact on their livelihoods. Agrorite is a digital agriculture platform that leverages innovative solutions to address various issues faced by farmers. Through the application of technology, the company has achieved impressive milestones, including the production of 200,000MT of agricultural commodities and the trading of over 300,000MT across five continents worldwide.
The company is concerned with the post-harvest value chain within agriculture and offers a “farm to fork” experience. Agrorite provides warehousing solutions to guarantee the most minimum post – harvest waste, as well as access to both local and international markets to help ensure investment profitability.
Engaging smallholder farmers across Nigeria
Agrorite has successfully onboarded and engaged more than 300,000 smallholder farmers across different states of Nigeria. By providing technological solutions to warehousing and facilitating local and international fair trade of agricultural commodities, the company has created opportunities for farmers to enhance their productivity and profitability. Agrorite’s operations initially focused on Kano, Kaduna, and other Northeast States in Nigeria, as well as Ghana and Guinea Bissau. The company’s commitment to excellence has been recognized through accolades such as the “100 Most Promising Startups” award by Startup Istanbul, Turkey.
Transformation in the rural sector
Kanayo Felix Nwanze, the Chairman of Agrorite’s board, emphasized the importance of addressing hunger and poverty by empowering the rural sector. Highlighting the vulnerable position of farmers, fishers, herders, and pastoralists, Nwanze stressed the need to support this vital population in the face of challenges such as hunger, poverty, climate change, and conflict, “Ending hunger calls for a transformation that must begin with the rural sector – because, as shown by FAO, IFAD, AfDB, the World Bank and others, this is the environment, this is the population of farmers, fishers, herders, and pastoralists that is hit the hardest with hunger, with poverty, with climate change, and with conflict – ironically, the population and the environment that feeds most of Africa. And they are mostly women,” said Nwanze.
Agritechs from across Africa and the MENA region and have raised USD 1.1 billion over the past 5 years.