Listening to farmers is key to driving innovation in agri-food systems

Many farmers are still hesitant to move away from traditional farming practices. To drive meaningful change, experts say it’s essential to understand their challenges and use research to guide innovation. This ensures that new technologies are aligned with real on-the-ground needs.

Melaku Yirga, Vice President for Africa at Mercy Corps, underscores this point. He explains that the organisation has spent over a decade exploring how digital technology can strengthen food systems, making them more efficient and inclusive for both farmers and other stakeholders.

“Innovation must start from a farmer-first perspective. That means understanding their day-to-day challenges and ensuring digital solutions are both practical and impactful,” he said

Melaku shared these insights at the 9th Annual Learning Event (ALE 2025), hosted in Nairobi by Mercy Corps AgriFin in collaboration with Briter.

The event brought together over 300 participants from more than 20 countries, including investors, innovators, policymakers, development partners, and agri-food entrepreneurs. Their goal was to explore how Africa and Asia’s agri-food systems can evolve into more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable ecosystems, driven by smarter data and investment.

Held under the theme ‘Data-Driven Innovations and Investments: Harnessing Intelligence to Build Sustainable, Investable Agri-Food Systems,’ the one-day forum also unveiled early findings from the AgTech Investment and Innovation in Emerging Markets Report (H1 2025), powered by the AgBase platform.

The forum spotlighted key themes such as investment trends, technology adoption, and inclusive models reshaping the sector. Sessions covered areas including bridging the investment gap, harnessing emerging technologies, and strengthening ecosystems and partnerships to support resilient Agri-SMEs.

Melaku reaffirmed Mercy Corps’ commitment to long-term transformation in the sector, saying, “We’re focused on meeting urgent food needs while building food systems that are resilient, inclusive, and future-ready. Our goal is to prevent food crises from destabilising communities, mitigate the impact of climate shocks, and ensure food systems work better for everyone, from producers to consumers.”

Sieka Gatabaki, Program Director at Mercy Corps AgriFin, stressed the importance of data-driven, evidence-based investment strategies.

“Africa’s agri-food systems are at a tipping point. In 2023, $1.56 billion was invested in AgTech across the continent, with 60 per cent of that going into agriculture. But unless this capital is guided by sharp, localised intelligence, we risk investing in solutions that don’t move the needle,” he says.

Looking ahead, AgriFin and Briter plan to expand the AgBase platform to deliver deeper, real-time investment intelligence, helping investors, governments, and entrepreneurs make smarter, faster decisions to strengthen Africa’s food systems.

Dario Giuliani, Managing Director and Founder of Briter, highlighted how the insights shared at ALE 2025 are shaping the continent’s agricultural investment landscape.

“AgBase is closing one of the biggest gaps in Africa’s agricultural economy: Access to reliable, comparable investment intelligence. By tracking where innovation is happening and where capital is flowing, we’re helping stakeholders make better decisions, faster. This kind of data-driven visibility is what will move the sector from potential to performance,” he explains.

Tamara Cook, CEO of FSD Kenya, raised concerns over persistent food security challenges, even in resource rich countries like Kenya.

“The problem lies in broken fundamentals. To fix this, we must ensure our natural resources are used to build agrifood systems that benefit farmers, communities and the country as a whole,” she says.

Tamara emphasised that achieving meaningful change requires more intentional intersections between agriculture, finance, and technology to truly support agribusinesses and smallholder farmers in improving livelihoods and feeding nations.