Agriculture is the backbone of Africa’s economy, employing over 60% of the continent’s labour force and contributing significantly to the gross domestic product (GDP) in many countries.
In Ghana, home to agritech startup Complete Farmer, agriculture makes up 54% of its GDP, accounts for over 40% of export earnings, and employs 52% of the labour force.
Despite its importance, the sector faces a myriad of challenges, from the adverse effects of climate change to infrastructure and technological gaps, and access to markets.
Complete Farmer, an eight-year-old startup, is bidding to improve financial outcomes for the millions of farmers in Africa by providing access to markets and technological inputs.
The origins of Complete Farmer
For many people, the seeds for their future are planted in childhood. That was the case for Desmond Koney, Founder and CEO of Complete Farmer. The son of a farmer, he intended to pursue a career as a mechanical engineer, but his father’s death meant the farm was passed on to him.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Koney noted that his initial goal was to digitise the farm, but the business ended up going through multiple iterations before landing at its present state.
“This aspiration can be vague, as one must determine what business model works, what the product is, etc. We’ve had to make several adjustments to determine both.”
Today, the startup operates as a global marketplace linking farmers with international buyers while ensuring that the farmers have the inputs needed to give maximum yield.
Building an agricultural ecosystem
While it styles itself as a marketplace, a look at its product offerings shows it is more an agricultural ecosystem than a marketplace.
The startup’s anchor offering is the grower platform, which serves as an entry point for farmers. Through the grower platform, farmers complete KYC processes and access agricultural information.
They are assigned agents who provide hands-on support and monitor their activities throughout the planting and harvest seasons. Furthermore, SMS and IVR-based alerts ensure that farmers receive timely information, even without direct access to smartphones.
A second feature is the marketplace, CF Buyer. CF Buyer allows international buyers, such as FMCGs and food processors, to source directly from local farmers. The platform matches orders to a group of farmers based on their skillset, ensuring that buyers receive quality produce. Pricing mechanisms include market price guidance, price floors and ceilings, and negotiations, allowing for fair transactions.
CF Storefront is another component of the platform that provides farmers with access to inputs and services via USSD and vendor listings. Farmers can place orders through a short code, which is then routed based on their needs. According to Teddy Appah-Dankyi, Chief Commercial Officer at Complete Farmer, this feature was developed in response to feedback from farmers, ensuring that it addresses their specific requirements.
In November 2024, the startup began beta testing a financial service product with 1,000 farmers. Appah-Dankyi notes that CF Transact is a fintech wallet designed to provide farmers with savings, credit access, and payments on the platform.
Farmers can fund their wallets from their mobile money accounts, allowing them to pay vendors on the platform. It’s also a long-term strategy by Complete Farmer to provide a store of value on which it can layer additional services.
“We implemented this product to rope farmers into the financial ecosystem because we realised that the only value they get from the traditional MoMo solution is just the movement of money, but CF Transact gives them access to credit, and they have a store of value they can save on top.”
Settlement to vendors isn’t automatic, and farmers must send a short code after each purchase confirming that they received value for their money. Only then is the money released to the vendor.
Merging technology and human inputs
One of the biggest challenges to building technology products in Africa is user adoption. While smartphone penetration rates have soared in the last decade, more than half of the population still lacks access to smartphones.
Consequently, startups, especially those that intend to reach underserved populations, cannot rely solely on digital methods to deliver their products.
Two examples stand out. Moniepoint and TymeBank are two of the most valuable fintechs on the continent, but their success has not come from depending on digital platforms.
For Moniepoint, its ability to get its blue point-of-sale machines into the nooks and crannies of Nigeria has seen it quickly win market share, something it has now leveraged to build consumer-facing products. Similarly, TymeBank has seen success by combining a mobile app with physical touchpoints.
Complete Farmer is taking a similar route. The farmers it serves fall into two categories: commercial farmers with the resources to invest in technology and smallholder farmers who are often not tech savvy. For the second group, it depends on a network of over 200 agents to deliver services to them.
Agents perform a variety of functions. For example, each new farmer is assigned an agent who is responsible for ensuring that they get the right inputs to meet the standard Complete Farmer’s clients require. Since some farmers do not own smartphones, they also help with requesting input and relaying performance reports.
Its agents require some knowledge of agricultural practices, so the startup works closely with the Ministry of Agriculture in Ghana and agricultural colleges to recruit agents. Additionally, it provides a six-module training platform for aspiring agents.
“Overall, when they go through this, they are able to give the farmers hands-on support during the planting season and even during the harvest season. When it’s time to buy from the farmers, these agents are trained to do some quality inspections at the aggregation points before the commodities are bagged and shipped to our fulfilment centres.”
About 40,000 farmers have conducted some transactions on Complete Farmer, but Appah-Dankyi notes that only 12,000 are active. While this is a large number for less than 300 agents to manage, he adds that the startups benefit from the seasonal nature of agriculture in Ghana, as it allows agents to focus on a small set of farmers each season.
Growing pains and outlook
Complete Farmer’s growth has attracted the attention of investors who have put in more than $10 million so far. But that growth hasn’t come without its hurdles.
According to Appah-Dankyi, one persistent challenge is competition from other buyers attempting to poach farmers the company has supported. While a few have been lured away, he maintains that the issue hasn’t reached a scale significant enough to cause concern.
“It is very evident that our pricing is better, and farmers gain more if they sell to us. It’s not a service where we just give you protocols and walk away. We are giving them inputs and credit. We are also giving them some level of insurance and financial literacy, so this has made the switching cost very high for the farmer.”
Volatile market prices present another significant challenge, one largely beyond the startup’s control. For instance, the Russia-Ukraine war led to a global surplus of soybeans, making it difficult for Complete Farmer to offer competitive prices to its farmers.
According to Appah-Dankyi, expansion has been gradual because of the business’ asset-heavy nature, buyers’ strict requirements, crop availability in new regions, and farmers’ responses to the business model.
Now present in Ghana and Togo, it is planning to expand into Côte d’Ivoire this year and increase the type of crops its farmers can produce.