Agriculture is a major economic driver in many parts of Africa. Several countries on the continent rely on farming and agribusinesses as their primary revenue sources and employment avenues for their citizenry.
However, North African countries rarely get the spotlight for their agricultural prowess. Understandably, the general climate and topography in the region are not well suited to farming. As a result, the sector does not get deserved attention.
Fortunately, several innovative startups in the region remain undeterred by these setbacks. Instead, these companies are driving revolutionary changes and challenging the status quo in the sector through innovative mechanisms. Here we’ve identified 12 Agtech startups leveraging technology to redefine agriculture and improve food distribution in North Africa.
Plug’n’Grow
Year Founded: 2019
Location: Cairo, Egypt
Plug’n’Grow is a technology company that develops systems for advancing soilless agricultural processes in Egypt. The startup deploys advanced, sustainable, and scalable innovations designed to address the global food security and water scarcity challenges.
Plug’n’Grow specializes in designing and optimizing commercial-scale facilities tailored to each agricultural project’s requirements. But with a focus on addressing food security and water scarcity challenges, their innovations generally include Hydroponic and Aquaponics based solutions for soilless agrarian setups.
Plug’n’Grow’s solutions specifically address challenges commonly associated with North Africa’s geographic, economic, and climatic conditions. Within its few years of operation, the company has become a reliable partner to several successful soilless agricultural production setups in Egypt and other parts of North Africa.
AgriEdge
Year Founded: 2018
Location: Ben Guerir, Morocco
AgriEdge is a digital technology platform helping stakeholders in the agricultural sector to maximize the resources available to them. The startup leverages research and development data to help farmers rationalize their resources and improve their results.
The company provides a range of tech-enabled services designed to meet the needs of stakeholders across the agricultural sector. These include remote crop monitoring solutions, irrigation systems, infection detection modules, and an agricultural produce marketplace for farmers to sell their goods. Clients can access all these solutions via the company’s integrated digital infrastructure.
With a good understanding of agricultural systems and practices, AgriEdge is helping farmers overcome economic and environmental challenges. It works closely with an international scientific community composed of recognized experts in precision agriculture to develop scalable solutions to improve agricultural practices across North Africa.
Mahaseel Masr
Year Founded: 2019
Location, Cairo, Egypt
Mahaseel Masr is a digital technology company enabling the seamless transfer of goods within the North African agricultural value chain. The company helps farmers find purchasers for their products while assisting consumers in accessing fresh products.
Mahaseer Masr operates a digital marketplace designed to connect Egypt farmers with buyers worldwide. Farmers can showcase their products on the platform for consumers to see and purchase. The digital platform eliminates farmers’ reliance on intermediaries giving them a direct channel to the consumer market spread across over 15 countries.
Mahaseer Masr aims to facilitate the exchange of high-quality fresh food products, thereby maximizing profitability for farmers and value for consumers. Its solution also helps to improve agricultural export value in Africa by inspiring the digital transformation of agriculture supply and distribution on the continent.
Beekeeper Tech
Year Founded: 2020
Location: Tunis, Tunisia
Beekeeper Tech is an innovative company helping honey producers achieve greater efficiency and productivity through technology. The company develops tools for beekeepers to address the common challenges and hazards that come with their business.
The company’s primary products are hive monitoring devices called SmartBee. These devices enable Beekeepers to track and monitor conditions in their hives. The systems measure metrics such as temperature and humidity and transmit the data gathered to a cloud-based software where the beekeeper can access the information in real-time.
The company enables farmers to follow their beehives’ productivity and their colonies’ health and better manage their apiary through its precision beekeeping technology. The company’s ultimate goal is to help honey producers scale their business, and it’s achieving that by giving them tools to keep their bees in top conditions.
Sand to Green
Year Founded: 2021
Location: Morocco
Sand to Green is a biotechnology company redefining agriculture to fight climate change in North Africa and Europe. The startup develops agroforestry solutions to turn deserts and dry patches into arable land, enabling farmers to cultivate desert lands, increase agricultural production and reduce CO2 presence in the atmosphere.
Sand to Green deploys innovative solutions to reverse desertification and restore degraded lands. The company researches processes, technologies, and sustainable agricultural practices to enhance the resilience of ecosystems in regions prone to severe droughts.
The company’s solution includes three primary elements; Solar-powered desalination modules that convert seawater for irrigation systems, strategic afforestation plans, and agroforestry software for managing plantations.
Sand to Green is driving a significant impact on food security, regenerative agriculture, biodiversity preservation, carbon footprint reduction, and social development through its innovative solution.
VAIS
Year Founded: 2020
Location: Giza, Egypt
Visual and Artificial Intelligence Solutions is a deep-tech and agricultural technology company developing innovative solutions to improve agricultural knowledge and practices. The company has deployed a Virtual Field Pobing (VFP) technology, enabling sensor-free earth surface and sub-surface exploration.
VAIS offers various services through its technology, including centralized farm and field management and monitoring, aggregated farm field statistics generation, data integration from field results for improved decisions, and dynamic map layers cover for obtaining full crop information.
The company’s services are all integrated into the VAIS FarmGATE digital framework designed to give farmers, traders, insurers, and all relevant stakeholders in the agriculture industry tools to improve their efficiency.
VAIS offers dependable irrigation intelligence solutions, dynamic crop mapping, nutrient distribution mapping, crop disease detection, and AI-guided scouting to clients through its solutions. All these are solutions meant to improve agricultural productivity.
Mozare3
Year Founded: 2020
Location: Giza, Egypt
Mozare3 is an agricultural value financier and growth enabler facilitating agricultural advancements across Egypt. The company provides financial products for smallholder farmers, enabling them to purchase supplies they need to achieve better yields.
Mozare3 has developed a consolidated digital community for farmers through its digital infrastructure. This community gives participating farmers access to several perks, including broader market access, contract farming, agronomy support, and simplified supply chain operations.
Mozare3 aims to increase efficiency in farming and agricultural produce distribution by providing farmers with innovative financial products and access to institutionalized off-takers. The company offers full support for small-scale farmers through the production and marketing processes of their goods.
ReNile
Year Founded: 2017
Location: Cairo, Egypt
ReNile is a leading environmental solution provider revolutionizing farm management and operations in Egypt. The company develops smart solutions that help to improve operational efficiency and productivity on farms.
ReNile’s solution is a farm monitoring system featuring IoT technology that provides farm data and analytics for farmers, giving them the insight to improve production efficiency and reduce wastage.
ReNile’s solutions apply to water, air, and soil quality management, making them useful for several categories of farmers.
RoboCare
Year Founded: 2020
Location: Sfax, Tunisia
RoboCare is an Agtech company devising innovative systems to promote sustainable agricultural practices and methods in Africa. The company provides precision farming services and preventive plant disease diagnosis using spectroscopy and AI image analysis.
RoboCare’s flagship product is a digital monitoring system that incorporates hyperspectral imaging and artificial intelligence for early plant disease detection. The imaging equipment collects plant and crop data from farms. At the same time, the AI algorithm analyses the images using comprehensive crop models to determine the condition of the plants and generate plant signatures that differentiate between healthy and stressed plants.
RoboCare’s product primarily helps farmers detect plant infections early, even while they’re still invisible to the human eye. With this technology, the company helps farmers identify and curtail plant issues while they’re still controllable. As a result, RoboCare is promoting sustainable agriculture and food security in Tunisia through its innovative use of technology.
AGRI 4.0
Year Founded: 2018
Location: Agadir Souss Massa, Morocco
Agri 4.0 is a technology company focused on scaling agriculture in Africa to the same level as world leaders in the industry through technological advancements. It designs innovative systems that help farmers improve their processes and maximize outputs.
Agri 4.0 tailors its solutions to each farmer’s specific needs. But its solutions typically include farm monitoring systems, energy solutions, and water and irrigation solutions.
Agri 4.0 operates with the mission to make agriculture profitable for farmers regardless of its scale. It also aims to create more employment through the sector and make it more attractive to young people in Africa.
In addition, it aims to improve the quality of agricultural products going out of Africa while reducing the carbon footprint from the sector and proferring solutions to everyday problems farmers encounter in the business through intelligent systems.
AbuErdan
Year Founded: 2016
Location: Zamalek, Egypt
AbuErdan is an Agtech company leveraging technology to introduce greater efficiency into poultry management processes and systems. The company develops solutions that enable poultry farmers to implement measures for resource management and animal loss prevention to help them increase their productivity.
AbuErdan operates a cloud-based management system designed to empower poultry farmers to have total control of everything going on in their farms. The solution also addresses the technical requirements of poultry farmers, giving them access to poultry best practices and farm administration tools.
AbuErdan’s systems incorporate analytics and machine learning models to help farmers make informed decisions, become efficient, reduce waste, and increase profitability. Hence, the company is assisting poultry operators in Egypt to maximize their resources and get value out of their farms.
Misrat
Year Founded: 2021
Location: Ariana, Tunisia
Misrat is a digital technology company helping farmers improve productivity and maximize their crop harvests. The startup allows farmers to find and employ additional hands to assist during non-mechanized harvesting processes.
Misrat operates a mobile-based digital platform where interested workers can sign up for temporary jobs harvesting agricultural produce, and farmers can employ additional hands to help speed up their harvesting process.
Through its digital agricultural job board, Misra is helping farmers avoid delayed harvesting due to workforce scarcity while also providing avenues for individuals (students, unemployed youths) to make extra income doing short-term non-committal jobs.
