Out of 122 Applications, Esoko has successfully secured funding under the AGriDI project in West Africa to improve the lives of smallholder farmers.
An Esoko Agent provides agronomic advice to a group of smallholder farmers
Esoko’s initiative- Digital Tools to Drive Market Access and Manage Ag-Value Chains (digiMakt)- is among nine shortlisted projects to receive funding under the European Union- ACP Innovation Funded project on “Accelerating inclusive green growth through agri-based digital innovation in West Africa” (AGriDI).
The AGriDI Consortium
The AGriDI project aims to promote the adoption of technology and innovation systems in agricultural activities in West Africa (ECOWAS countries). This consortium made up of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), Agropolis Fondation (AF), Gearbox Pan African Network (GB), and the Universite d’Abomey- Calavi are at the forefront of implementing AGriDI under the auspices of the European Union and ACP Innovation Fund.
The adoption of agri-based digital technologies has proven an increase in efficiency and productivity in agriculture and SMEs. Therefore, the AGriDI project hopes to leverage on the use of these technologies to promote farmers and SMEs, especially women and youth.
The nine AGriDI grant recipients were awarded based on 3 main categories:
- Co-development and adaptation of digital innovations to enhance agricultural Productivity
- Digital innovative solutions to establish market linkages for farmer’s produce
- The development of policies to support digital innovations
Esoko DigiMakt
The DigiMakt project is an end-to-end digitization of the agri-value chain. This ensures organized farmers have access to receive input credit, e-extension services and ready market for aggregated produce. A key actor in this process is the Agent Network which profiles and manages farmer groups onto a dedicated Esoko Farmer Database. This allows for easy and efficient tracking of field activities, technical assistance and arrangement of logistics for commodity purchases.
DigiMakt revolves around Esoko-owned Commodity Aggregation Hubs (CAH) which pre-processes the harvested produce for delivery to major end buyers. The main commodities under this project currently are maize and soybean.
The digiMakt Model
Access to Esoko services under digiMakt is not limited to only profiled farmers. Unprofiled Farmers in the operational areas can make an offer to sell their produce on the Esoko platform. The platform simply matches the smallholder farmer to the nearest Field Agent who undertakes an inspection of the produce. After that, a transaction is initiated between the two parties.
Under digiMakt, 108,000 metric tons of grain is expected to be produced in 5 years with support to over 24,000 smallholder farmers across Ghana.
