Wami Agro

The Challenge

Smallholder farmers are the backbone of Ghana’s agriculture, representing 70% of the workforce and contributing significantly to the nation’s food production. Despite their importance, these farmers face entrenched poverty, limited access to credit, unpredictable market conditions, and climate-related shocks. These challenges hinder their productivity, income potential, and resilience, leaving many vulnerable.

The Innovation

Wami Agro, an agritech company based in Ghana, is addressing these challenges through tech-enabled solutions designed to improve farmers’ livelihoods, reduce poverty, and strengthen food security. Wami Agro offers three key services:

• Wami Market: A service that aggregates produce from smallholder farmers and sells it in bulk to domestic and international markets, guaranteeing that farmers get consistent demand and fair pricing.
  
• Wami Credit: A digital platform that provides credit scoring for Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), enabling farmers to access financing for seeds, fertilizers, and mechanical equipment.

• Wami Info: Capacity-building initiatives that empower farmers with knowledge, resources, and climate-resilient farming practices.
  

Since its inception, Wami Agro has built a network across six regions in Ghana of over 14,000 smallholder farmers, 55% of whom are women. By working with these farmers and 50 aggregators, Wami Agro has helped produce and sell over 5,000 tons of grains, focusing on crops such as rice, maize, soya, and sorghum.

The Impact

With support from Acumen’s investment, Wami Agro will scale its operations, expand sourcing to neighboring countries like Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso, and roll out its proprietary digital farm management platform, Pukpara. This expansion aims to improve farmers’ yields, incomes, and climate resilience, and to impact 100,000 farmers by 2027.

Wami Agro has already made significant strides in boosting yields by an average of 44% and increasing farmers’ incomes by 25-30% per planting season. This transformation is life-changing for families, 77% of whom live on less than $3.65 per day, which is far above the national average of 24%.