Digital Agriculture News

02/06/25

Cote d’Ivoire introduces DPI for agricultural data sharing

The Government of Cote d’Ivoire has announced a new national data-governance initiative, a form of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), to facilitate the sharing between government and value chain actors of information in an organised, secure, and responsible manner. Farmers, agribusinesses, agritechs and civil society will be able to access essential data on weather, agriculture, production trends, and market forecasts. The initiative dubbed Le Case Agri is a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitisation and the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Food Production. It supports the vision of ensuring sovereign digital agriculture in the country.

Le Case Agri is supported by the European Union, the African Union, and the German Development Agency (GIZ), and is inspired by the Common European Agricultural data space (CEADS). CEADS facilitates data sharing, processing, and analysis and provides common standards, protocols, and interfaces for agricultural data exchange across Europe. It is not a single centralised platform, but a federated ecosystem of interoperable services and platforms. This makes it modular and distributed when compared to traditional DPIs like India’s Aadhaar or UPI.

05/06/25

MTN Foundation and Ogun State launch AgriConnect in Nigeria

The MTN Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of telco MTN Group, in collaboration with the Federal and Ogun State Governments, has launched AgriConnect, a digital platform designed to support 1,000 smallholder farmers in Ogun State. The initiative aims to enhance food production by providing farmers with mobile-based agricultural intelligence, including real-time weather updates, market prices, and best practices. AgriConnect is part of a broader effort to leverage technology for sustainable agricultural development in Ogun State, which has already deployed Nigeria’s first digital farmers’ database, currently hosting 160,000 registered farmers. The project is supported by Huawei Nigeria.

09/06/25

IRRI announces satellite crop insurance and agri advisory in the Philippines

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) together with the Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice), a government agency, and the government-owned Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC), are set to introduce a satellite-based, area-yield index insurance bundled with agri advisory services for rice farmers. Building on their 2023 collaboration, the partners are looking to introduce a new, automated payout mechanism designed to deliver more timely and targeted support.

Currently in pilot phase, the programme uses satellite imagery via the Philippine Rice Information System (PRISM) to map rice fields, monitor planting schedules, and simulate crop growth. It generates municipal-level forecasts and end-of-season yield estimates, which feed into the Area-Based Yield (ARBY) insurance scheme. Payouts are automatically triggered when yields fall below historical averages, eliminating the need for costly on-site damage assessments. Complementing this, the Climate+ advisory tool delivers timely, actionable insights based on weather forecasts.

The initiative aims to reach up to 2.4 million rice farmers, providing scalable, climate-resilient insurance coverage enhanced by timely agronomic advice. The Philippines faces around 20 typhoons annually, severely affecting agriculture and infrastructure. In 2024 alone, natural disasters caused USD 1 billion USD in agricultural losses, according to the Department of Agriculture.

09/06/25

Twiga pauses operations in Nairobi as it refocuses operations

Kenyan B2B agri e-commerce company Twiga Foods has temporarily suspended operations in Nairobi due to the relocation of its distribution hub at Tatu City in Kiambu County to a facility closer to Nairobi. This change is part of a strategic evolution of the company from a fresh produce supplier to an FMCG platform. Twiga’s platform aims to streamline the supply chain between fresh food producers, FMCG manufacturers and retailers. Twiga has recently secured majority ownership of three regional distributors/FMCGs: Jumra in Nairobi, Sojpar in Kisumu, and Raisons in Mombasa. Rather than managing physical infrastructure directly, Twiga now intends to empower these partners with its proprietary software while outsourcing daily logistics to third-party providers. As part of the move, and while it establishes a new holding entity, Twiga is laying off over 300 employees.

10/06/25

South Africa’s Nile raises $11.3M for marketplace linking farmers with buyers

South African agritech Nile has secured USD 11.3 million in a round led by the Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, with FMO (the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank). Founded in 2021, the company runs a real-time marketplace where buyers browse live listings of fruits and vegetables, assess pricing and quality, and make direct purchases. Nile operates in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Eswatini, and Mozambique.

With this funding, the company plans to strengthen its footprint in Southern Africa and expand into Eastern and Western Africa. While Nile’s solution is well established in its home market, it is well suited to low- and middle-income countries, where fragmented supply chains and limited infrastructure restrict smallholder farmers’ access to markets. In 2022, the startup received USD 5.1 million in equity funding in a round led by Naspers Foundry.

10/06/25

Good reads: SunCulture engages 60,000+ farmers with 90%+ repayment rates

Kenya-based SunCulture, an agritech company that provides solar-powered irrigation systems to smallholders, has published its annual letter highlighting key achievements for 2024. CEO Samir Ibrahim reports that over 60,000 digitally connected farmers across Africa now use SunCulture’s solar-powered irrigation systems. A standout achievement is the company’s Pay-As-You-Grow financing model for irrigation kits, which boasts a repayment rate of over 90%, well above the industry average of 68.5%. Each farmer interaction generates around 100 data points, enabling real-time insights and analytics that drive business decisions.

In 2024 the company acquired a stake in iPOS, a company helping agriculture micro retailers to digitally manage inventory and payments. It also partnered with Turaco Microinsurance to provide affordable life and health microinsurance to smallholder farmers. These moves reflect a shift toward offering bundled services alongside irrigation. In 2024, the company raised an additional USD 4 million from British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution, which previously supported the distribution of 9,000 irrigation systems in Kenya.

Founded in 2013, SunCulture provides end-to-end support to farmers using its irrigation kits, including financing, installation, maintenance and advisory services. SunCulture states that its solar pumps are brought to market at a cost that is estimated to be 40-60% lower than the cost of a fuel-based pump.