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Farmer on Fire Limited 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 inability to persuade investors.
“After Fintech, Agritech is the next funded industry with billions of grant money available for people with problem solving scalable ideas in Africa, we are planning to train over 1000 entrepreneurs in Africa for a subsidized fee of Sh2500,” she explained.
The online training will equip the agritech entrepreneurs with grant winning skills that include ways of improving grant application quality, budget writing and expenditure alignment with the grant amounts, 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 funders objectives, the first cohort will be trained on 24th July 2023, with applications ongoing at our website,” she added.
According to the latest report by Africa, The Big Deal, In 2022, 23 African agri-tech firms attracted $133m in investment, a figure up 39.7 percent from 2021. By comparison, the segment saw $50,000 in funding as recently as 2015. Two companies accounted for over 80 percent of these funds: Kenya’s Apollo Agriculture and Nigeria’s ThriveAgric.
“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.
The move comes after the firm’s CEO was named among three Africans recognised in the New York Global CItizen Prize Award 2023.
Kuria was recognised for profoundly impacting local communities by providing information to farmers across Africa in the fight against food insecurity.
Farmer on Fire works with vulnerable single mothers from pastoralist communities who are affected by severe climate change. She trains the women in her farms where they produce mushrooms, black soldier fly larvae and azolla.
Wangari Kuria was also one of the winners of the Forbes Forty Under 40 Africa Awards under the Agriculture Award category.
