The Role of Agritechs In The New Green Economy

The Role of Agritechs In The New Green Economy – with Haifa Ben Salem, Project Manager at International Trade Centre, Ayobami Oladipo, Business Development Lead for Nigeria at Ignitia, Babafemi Adewumi, Business Development Executive at Crop2Cash and Princess Ogbechie, Vice President of Operations at Farmz2U at Africa Tech Summit Nairobi 2026.

This panel, moderated by Haifa from the International Trade Centre (ITC), spotlighted the depth and evolution of Nigeria’s agritech ecosystem through three distinct verticals: climate intelligence (Ignitia), farmer-focused fintech (Crop2Cash), and supply chain digitization (Farmz2You). The discussion explored how technology can strengthen resilience, unlock financing, and reduce inefficiencies across the agricultural value chain. While innovation is advancing rapidly, the core message was clear: scaling agritech in Nigeria requires solving last-mile infrastructure gaps, embedding solutions into existing community systems, and fostering deep collaboration across the ecosystem.

Key Highlights Include:
• Climate Intelligence as De-Risking Infrastructure: Ignitia uses AI-driven tropical weather forecasting (c.90% accuracy) delivered via SMS to help farmers, insurers, banks, and governments make better decisions and build climate resilience.
• Financial Inclusion via Accessible Tech: Crop2Cash serves over 500,000 smallholder farmers using USSD and multilingual voice AI tools, with 40% of users accessing formal financial services for the first time through the platform.
• Supply Chain Digitization to Unlock Investment: Farms2You digitizes farm data, sourcing routes, and product availability to reduce perceived risk, attract financing, and tackle over 60% post-harvest losses caused by weak distribution and storage systems.
• Last-Mile & Adoption Challenges: Poor connectivity, limited banking access, and low smartphone penetration mean solutions must work on feature phones and integrate into existing community structures, often leveraging local youth as digital intermediaries.
• Collaboration Over Competition: Panelists emphasized embedding services into existing systems, partnering across agritech players (e.g., weather data integration), and shifting the narrative of smallholder farmers from “unbankable” to investable agribusinesses capable of driving food security and economic growth.

From keynotes to dynamic panel discussions, the summit explored groundbreaking topics across four flagship tracks: the Africa Money & DeFi Summit, Africa Climate Tech & Investment Summit, Africa Startup Summit, and Africa AI & Digital Summit. Attendees immersed themselves in the latest trends, shared ideas, and discovered cutting-edge innovations that are redefining Africa’s tech landscape.

But it wasn’t just about the talks – networking buzzed with energy, workshops sparked creativity, and exhibitions showcased the region’s tech solutions.

Africa Tech Summit Nairobi 2026 celebrated its 8th edition on February 11th and 12th at the Sarit Expo Centre in Nairobi. Bringing together leading industry players the summit explored the latest trends and insights in technology and business across Africa and beyond.