Farmer on Fire, a Kenyan agricultural firm, has launched a training programme for Agritech entrepreneurs on persuasive grant-writing proposals in a bid to increase investments in the sector.
Farmer on Fire Founder and Chief Executive Officer Wangari Kuria says the agriculture sector is attracting a lot of funding, but very few scalable ideas are being funded in Africa, largely driven by an inability to persuade investors.
She explained that after Fintech, Agritech is the next funded industry, with billions of grant money available for people with problem-solving scalable ideas in Africa.
The organization, whose aim is to tackle food insecurity through capacity building of Smallholder farmers, plans to train over 1000 entrepreneurs in Africa for a subsidized fee of Sh2500.
The online training will equip the agritech entrepreneurs with grant-winning skills that include ways of improving grant application quality and budget writing, and expenditure alignment with the grant amounts.
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The agritech entrepreneurs will also learn how to use narration to create grant applications that resonate with the funder, among other skills.
“We will also train on how understanding your funder will help entrepreneurs align their goals with the funder’s objectives. The first cohort will be trained on 24th July 2023, with applications ongoing at our website,” said Kuria in a media statement.
According to the latest report by Africa, The Big Deal, In 2022, 23 African agri-tech firms attracted $133 million in investment, a figure up 39.7 per cent from 2021.
By comparison, the segment saw $50,000 in funding as recently as 2015. Two companies accounted for over 80 per cent of these funds: Kenya’s Apollo Agriculture and Nigeria’s ThriveAgric.
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“With the scale of climate change-driven natural disasters increasing and the population of many emerging markets set to expand significantly, agri-tech start-ups are working to provide food security for the future by revitalising supply chains, tapping into artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and providing resources to farmers to help them respond effectively to disasters such as drought or flooding,” reads the report.
Kuria was recently among three Africans recognized in the New York Global CItizen Prize Award 2023. She was recognized for profoundly impacting local communities by providing information to farmers across Africa in the fight against food insecurity.
Farmer on Fire, which is based in Nairobi, works with vulnerable single mothers from pastoralist communities who are affected by severe climate change. The farmers are trained on how to produce mushrooms, Black soldier flies larvae, and Azolla.
