Inclusive Markets, FINANCE & TRADE

Image: Josh Ishimwe

Imagine you’re a farmer standing beside crates of beautiful almost-ripe tomatoes. The harvest is good. The quality is high. But the nearest reliable buyer is several hours away, the road is poor, and there is no cold storage to keep your tomatoes fresh as they await purchase.

By tomorrow, those tomatoes may be worth less. In a few days, they may be worth nothing.

Growing food is not enough. Agriculture also needs people who can move produce, build markets where produce can be sold, finance businesses, negotiate deals, and connect producers with customers. That is the world of inclusive markets, trade, and finance.

Markets connect farmers and agribusinesses with buyers. Trade moves food and agricultural products between districts, countries, and regions. Finance provides the money and financial tools businesses need to buy equipment, pay workers, manage risk, and grow.

The word inclusive asks the most important question: who actually gets to participate? A young entrepreneur may have an excellent idea but no assets to offer a bank as collateral.

A woman trader may keep a regional food corridor moving while operating with little legal recognition or protection. A smallholder farmer may be only 20 kilometres from a major processor yet have no information about its prices or quality requirements.

This sector is about closing those gaps.

You could manage a warehouse, develop a mobile-payment product, operate refrigerated transport, analyse commodity prices, insure small farms, process cassava into flour, help businesses meet export standards or build a platform connecting restaurants with local producers.

Why should I do it?

Contrary to what people believe, markets, trade and finance are all about understanding people and societies hand in hand with the numbers.

You like connecting dots. You notice where value is being lost. You enjoy negotiating, organising, analysing numbers or turning an informal idea into a functioning business. You are interested in what people want, what they will pay for, and how to deliver it reliably and sustainably.

Perhaps you thrive on relationships and can win a customer’s trust. Perhaps you would rather build the financial model, track prices, or redesign a supply route. You may enjoy the speed of commerce: products moving, deals closing and businesses expanding.

You do not have to own a farm to build a career in African agriculture. You could work in banking, logistics, retail, insurance, technology, manufacturing, investment or international trade.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Because food can be available and still fail to reach the people who need it.

Weak transport links, expensive logistics, limited storage, and unreliable markets increase food costs and expose supply chains to climate shocks and global disruptions. The World Bank notes that the weaknesses along Africa’s food supply chains increase prices and contribute to significant post-harvest losses.

Consider the possibilities hidden inside those losses. A cold room near a hub of smallholder farms can keep produce fresh for longer. A reliable truck route can connect rural farms with urban supermarkets. A warehouse-receipt system can allow farmers to store grain and only sell when prices improve instead of accepting the first offer after harvest.

Trade matters too. One region on the continent may face a food shortage while another has a surplus, yet border delays or unpredictable regulations can prevent food from moving efficiently to fill this gap. The African Continental Free Trade Area (a continental trade agreement) creates possibilities, but those possibilities still need customs specialists, traders, logistics businesses, standards experts, and policymakers capable of making regional commerce work in practice.

Then there is finance. Agricultural businesses need capital before they earn income: to buy seed, equipment, packaging, storage, or transport. Yet many young entrepreneurs are considered too risky by lenders, even when their businesses are solving obvious market problems.

Who else in the food system would I work with?

You would work especially closely with people in Policy and State Capability.

Agribusinesses need rules they can understand, borders they can cross predictably, and public infrastructure that supports trade. Policymakers, in turn, need evidence from farmers, traders, processors, and lenders to see where regulations or public systems are blocking growth.

You would also collaborate with seed businesses that need distribution and finance. Sustainable agripreneurs may need investment to bring clean energy or cold-storage products to market. Farmers’ organisations could help aggregate produce from many small farms so that they can meet the volumes required by larger buyers.

MEET Divine Irebe

Divine Irebe is the founder of MoneyPhone Africa, a Rwandan-based financing initiative that provides smallholder farmers with instant access to financing. The non-deposit financial institution simply requires farmers to complete a short application process on their phones, after which they can instantly receive the funds they need for operations — alleviating common cash flow issues and allowing farmers to keep their businesses flowing. Everything happens on the phone, including loan repayments, making the process accessible and fair. For more on Money Phone, watch the video below.

MEET Sandra Ruhizi

Based in Tanzania, Sandra Ruhizi is the founder of Kijana Factory which turns post-harvest loss into financial potential. Through the production and sale of herbs and spices, Kijana Factory is able to financially empower smallholder farmers, particularly women and young people, by turning their food waste into a source of sustainable income through processing and packaging. Ruhizi has created a circular system where farmers are trained to process their harvests and provide financial literacy to sustain their incomes. For more on Kijana Factory, watch the video below.

What is YEFFA, and how can it get me started?

Get Started

YEFFA stands for Youth Entrepreneurship for the Future of Food and Agriculture. The programme aims to reach 10 million young people and support at least 1.5 million of them to access agriculture work — that means you, too, if you’re interested! It does this by addressing more than skills alone. Namely, YEFFA brings together training, enterprise support, market connections, access to finance, policy participation, and climate-smart agriculture.

What makes the programme relevant here is its focus on the whole environment around a young person rather than training in isolation. That could help you understand where opportunities sit within a value chain, strengthen your business skills, become ready to approach funders or connect with customers, mentors and partners.