The problem

In Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 50% of fruits and vegetables never reach consumers, resulting in lost income for farmers and higher food prices. Kenya’s agricultural sector relies heavily on smallholder farmers, whose produce faces increased vulnerability to extreme weather events and resource constraints, such as costly or low-quality inputs. This susceptibility leads to rejection by buyers due to aesthetics or perceived quality, with crops often being smaller or oddly shaped due to extreme weather. Consequently, many farmers abandon their produce, considering it a financial loss. Farm To Feed (FTF) has developed a digital solution facilitating market linkage for imperfect produce, enabling smallholder farmers to earn additional income while enhancing the availability and affordability of nutritious food.

The company

Farm to Feed is a startup tackling the problem of food loss by creating a market for imperfect or surplus produce. Imperfect produce are crops rescued from farms that would have been otherwise written off as a loss because the farmer did not meet product specification or market expectation – for example, odd looking crops. FTF connects smallholder farmers to buyers enabling them to sell their produce and earn additional income, while reducing food wastage.

Project description

The proposed project will include the following activities:

• Technical development of FTF digital platforms. This includes developing a USSD platform and improving their farm engagement app to engage more farmers to off-take their imperfect/surplus produce.
• Develop and market their e-commerce platform to onboard more B2B buyers to offtake more imperfect and surplus produce from farmers.
• Establish additional supply hubs (aggregation centres to off-take agricultural produce) that enable FTF to aggregate more produce and engage more farmers in rural Kenya.

In doing so, the project seeks to enable farmers to easily access FTF digital solutions, increase their incomes and improve their resilience to climate shocks.

Founders

Quote from Founder

“We are thrilled to be part of GSMA’s Innovation Fund for Climate Resilience and Adaptation. GSMA’s support will take our digital food rescue solution to the next level, making it more accessible by farmers and our business-to-business customers. This funding will allow us to improve our farmer engagement and aggregation of imperfect or surplus produce, boost farmer incomes and increase their climate resilience.”

Team

12 staff members.