Agriculture employs the most people in Africa and contributes 30 – 40 per cent of gross domestic product. Its apparent importance notwithstanding, the practice of and investments in agriculture in Africa suffers the most from a deficit of information compared to most other sectors on the continent. From AgBase’s ‘The State of AgTech in Africa 2024’ report, commercial and non-commercial investors often work together to jointly assess and make investments (even though this is declining). Still, sharing time-limited information about a specific deal or financing opportunity is a far cry from having readily accessible insight into trends that are shaping the development of agricultural value chains, business models and technology players at different levels. Modern economies are built on interconnected value chains and agriculture is no different. The lack of readily accessible, comprehensive and context-rich information means that governments, investors and even farmers struggle to understand let alone adequately support agricultural development beyond narrow time-limited interventions.
