There are more women than men working across Africa’s agriculture value chain. However, the lack of access to land, funding, quality knowledge and agricultural tools, stifle their productivity and the economic value they get in return. LadyAgri, a Pan-African impact investment hub was launched in 2018 to bridge this gap.

If you Google “agriculture in Africa,” the search engine turns up more than 5 million results in less than a second. In many of the results on the image tab, you will find an African woman standing in a lush farm field, the sun setting or rising behind her. Oftentimes, she is smiling, a hoe slung over her shoulders or standing with her fellow farmers holding her produce to the camera. Ayélé Gabiam, co-founder and head of partnerships at LadyAgri knows too well how grossly misleading or inaccurate these images of women’s position in Africa’s agriculture milieu are. 

“When you look at the key operators throughout the agri value chain, meaning from farm to food, you will see that 42% of the primary agriculture production is done by women,” Gabiam tells AMAKA from Brussels. “In terms of food processing, it’s 82%. In terms of food distribution, we are talking about 71% and regarding food services in restaurants, it’s more than 80%.”

In spite of this, access to finance, land, equipment, technology, quality partnerships, market and technical know-how remains a huge challenge for women agri-entrepreneurs. Why access remains challenging to women entrepreneurs is multi-layered and Gabiam says that in many instances, the roadblocks are cultural. In many parts of Africa, land ownership is still in favour of male members of society and women are already disenfranchised from one of the critical tools required for running a thriving agriculture business. Take Cameroon, for instance, where only 25% of land owners are women although they make up 45% of workers in cocoa production. 

 In October 2018, Gabiam, who is Togolese, alongside her two co-founders, Hilary Barry from Ireland, and Aida Axelsson-Bakri of Ethiopian and Swiss descent, launched the LadyAgri Hub to solve these accessibility challenges. Geographically, the hub’s activities span the European Union, Caribbean and Pacific Small Island Developing States and Africa, where they support 633 women agri-entrepreneurs and cooperatives across 30 countries in the African Union. These agri-entrepreneurs run businesses (at least two years old) that are considered midstream in the agricultural value chain, a segment many have termed the “hidden middle.” This hidden middle includes small and medium scale processing, wholesale and logistics businesses that bridge the upstream (farm production) and downstream (retail and consumption) segments of the market. Together, these components are critical to providing economic value across the chain and limiting food losses as produce moves from farm to fork. 

According to a 2019 report by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, this group of players in the industry account for about 40% of the total gross value of the food system in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 400 of the small and medium scale agri businesses in its network employ over 4000 workers, 81% of which are women, and source produce from over 13500 women farmers. In addition to this, LadyAgri also supports 211 groups and associations with memberships between 5 and 3000.

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Three pillars of support and valuable partnerships

From Asante Mama in Uganda to Maina Vert in Kenya and Tropic Mango in Côte d’ Ivoire, LadyAgri’s women entrepreneurs deal in a variety of produce; these include commodities like cocoa, coffee, cashew, sesame, spices, pepper, tomatoes, edible insects, fresh fruits and vegetables. LadyAgri offers assistance to agri-entrepreneurs in three critical areas: finance, technology/innovation partnerships and technical assistance. On finance, Gabiam says LadyAgri works with local banks, development financial institutions and lenders in and outside the continent who want to grow their agriculture portfolios. “We also facilitate a lot of access to finance with a lot of philanthropic organisations,” she adds. This includes LadyAgri’s philanthropic organisation called Friends of LadyAgri Fund which gives out a minimum of $20,000 in funding annually to one small/medium scale business, cooperative or producer associations with women as active participants. “There are a lot of funds [for women] but the challenge remains access to those funds,” Gabiam emphasises.

With innovation partnerships, LadyAgri facilitates B2B collaborations which connects the women in its network to intercontinental supply chains, production technology and eco-friendly packaging material suppliers among many others. And through its technical assistance programme, the hub offers training in the areas of business, expansion and process development, in partnership with its network of 200+ experts across the globe. The knowledge garnered equips and enables the agri-entrepreneurs to follow standardised procedures that make farm produce fit for a diverse range of markets locally and internationally. 

As head of partnerships, Gabiam is primarily responsible for discovering, negotiating and onboarding a diverse range of industry experts and institutions that will be beneficial to the women within the LadyAgri network. Gabiam explains that based on the requirement of its three pillars, she tells potential partners “What LadyAgri is about, and the benefits for an organisation that works with us.” Every situation calls for a different pitch. The goal is to educate would-be partners about the access gap for women-owned agribusinesses and how LadyAgri addresses this need. Gabiam says her pitches also highlight the interesting opportunities available to institutions or businesses when they become partners. 

 In May 2020, the hub partnered with Chocolatiers Engagées, The Conseil Interprofessionel Cacao Café, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Trade to launch a pilot programme for women cocoa cooperatives in Cameroon. Since January 2021, the hub has also been in partnership with the European Cocoa Association (ECA) to provide solutions to the sustainability challenges within the cocoa value chain in the EU-African Caribbean and Pacific Cocoa Trade. Also in its retinue of partners are the African Union, United Nations Capital Development Fund, CORAF, Federation of West Africa Chambers of Commerce, King Baudouin Foundation in Belgium, and research institutions like the University of Cork and Ghent University. “After COVID, we’ve seen that the promising business in Africa is agriculture,” argues Gabiam. This means organisations who have not considered investing in the agriculture industry in the past either due to lack of quality information or erroneous assumptions about the inherent risks involved are now having a rethink. Agriculture, after all, remains a major contributor to Africa’s GDP (15%) and employment opportunities (53%). 

AfCFTA and its impact on agriculture food chains across the continent 

At a 6.1 percent average, African businesses are paying significantly higher tariffs to export produce to their neighbours. In January 2021, African nations signatory to the pact opened their doors to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) lifting barriers to a 1.3 billion people market with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $3.4 trillion. The AfCFTA’s promises, at least theoretically, include frameworks and policies that address difficulties and bottlenecks like high tariffs in intra-African trade. According to the ECA, the agreement could potentially boost trade within the continent by 52.3 percent, alleviate poverty and spur socioeconomic development across the board. 

In less than three decades, Africa’s population is expected to reach 2.5 billion, all of whom will be entitled to food, one of humanity’s most basic needs. The need to support and boost the operations of the midstream agriculture sector is therefore exigent and the AfCFTA is expected to contribute majorly in this regard. “We hope that the agreement will be implemented for real because this is what is important to us for our women,” Gabiam says of the new trade agreement. “Because as long as it is not implemented, we will have the same issues.”

Implementing the AfCFTA, experts agree, is a long and arduous task. Infrastructure such as road networks, efficient border policies and political will across its 54 signatories will be critical to its effectiveness. With 35 signatories having ratified the agreement to date, the jury is still out on how much benefit the trade area amasses for its members in agriculture and other sectors. 

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LadyAgri and other hats

As a business woman and single mother of two, Gabiam combines her work at LadyAgri with two other tasking roles. “Sometimes, it’s not easy,” she says, nonetheless, being able to delegate and great organisational skills have come in handy for her while combining all three roles. “If you can’t take anymore, just say, you can’t take no more,” she adds. 

Having co-founders to share the burdens of running a multi-continent hub such as LadyAgri has also been greatly beneficial. Gabiam and Barry were colleagues while working for a European Commission project that sought to help producers of food and vegetables in Africa fulfil and respect market standards in Europe. Axelsson-Bakri, who worked primarily in the private sector, joined the duo as the idea for the hub started taking shape. “You can have advice from here and there, you can have support,” she says about the importance of having co-founders. “When we started LadyAgri, it was with our own funds,” Gabiam recalls. “We went to all the banks and institutions. We knew them because we were also from this work but none of them believed in this project.”

Gabiam is unequivocal about the critical role African women play in the agri-supply value chain across the continent. And with effective support and access to tools, not only will the continent have enough to feed its teeming population, but there will be enough for exports globally. These are the visions that spur her and her co-founders on at LadyAgri.