The Problem with Agriculture in Africa
This is something I have thought about for a very long time, but I think we need to talk about it plainly. Agriculture in Africa is not sustainable. We need to stop thinking small. We need to think big.
The smallholder narrative—which I believe is very similar to the hustle narrative—needs to die. We need big farms and fewer people working on the farm. In this essay, I explore this idea and why I believe it is unavoidable.
Lessons from the Agrarian Revolution
I remember in high school when we were learning about the Agrarian Revolution in Britain. The key thing I remember was that, in addition to the mechanisation of agriculture, a lot of land was collectivised from smaller farms into larger farms.
There is a video I once watched of a Gen Z farmer documenting his journey into farming in the UK. He mentioned that one must have a farm of at least 400 acres for it to make financial sense. He was thinking like a commercial farmer. Sure, he kept chickens, grew crops in rotation throughout the year, and kept some produce for subsistence. However, his eye was on the prize. He had a farm to make money. He was in it to sell produce to the market.
The Smallholder Myth in Africa
Compare this to Africa. We keep championing the smallholder farmer narrative, but if you think small, you might end up exactly that—small.
80% of produce in Kenya is produced by smallholder farmers. 80% of farmers are smallholders. 35% of the population is directly involved in agriculture. Yet when you look at the United States, only about 5% of the population works in agriculture, and it is the largest agricultural producer in the world.
Alright, maybe we shouldn’t compare ourselves to the world’s superpower. What about a small country in Scandinavia? The Netherlands doesn’t even have a favourable climate like Kenya, nor does it have enough land. In fact, the Netherlands has reclaimed land from the sea so they can set up greenhouses. Such a small, agriculturally unfavourable country is the second-largest agricultural producer in the world. Yes, you heard that correctly.
Some of you might already know this, but most of you don’t—and that’s exactly what we need to talk about.
Why Smallholder Farmers Cannot Carry the Burden
We have been sold the dream that smallholder farmers will save African agriculture. My conclusion is that they can’t, and we should not give them that burden.
Only large-scale commercial farmers can transform the agricultural supply chain. However, there are many barriers to making this a reality.
Infrastructure Is Broken
Poor infrastructure is the first major barrier. The lack of proper roads, railways, postal codes, and everything that makes logistics efficient is either dilapidated or non-existent.
Many people are forced to use inefficient means like lorries, tuk-tuks, and boda bodas to get their produce to market. This is in contrast to trucks, trains, and ships in the US and the Netherlands.
Only government can set up infrastructure at a national scale to support farmers, aggregators, processors, and exporters. But that’s not what is happening. We all know where the money is going.
In this environment, logistics companies and aggregators can charge a premium because you have no other option. It is what it is. If no one helps farmers, someone else will—and they will charge a premium. Or better yet, they will buy from the farmer at very low prices and sell in the market at very high prices.
The Land Problem
The land issue is real. We cannot build a great agricultural sector if most farmers are dealing with one to two acres of land. You cannot do anything meaningful with that.
I would be shocked if most of them even feed themselves without supplementation. They live hand to mouth. They depend on the next harvest to pay school fees, put food on the table, and maybe save something—if anything is left.
With one acre, it doesn’t make financial sense to buy a tractor to make work faster. Many rely on manual labour, which takes time. This pushes more people to work on farms just to get things done and earn something small.
If things were more efficient, many of these people would be forced to find something else to do. This can only happen if we increase the acreage of land per farmer.
Government Protection and Subsidies
Third is government protection and subsidies. US farmers are the most protected and pampered farmers in the world.
You cannot sell maize to the US because the tariffs are so high. This protects their local farmers. Fertiliser, pesticides, and herbicides are kept in stable supply and pricing by design. When prices drop, farmers are cushioned with payouts to withstand harsh economic times. When drought hits, insurance covers losses.
The reason this works is simple: the government keeps track of its farmers. This is easier when you are dealing with fewer farmers, each with large acreage, who are skilled professionals.
This brings me to the next point.
Farming Has No Prestige
In Africa, farming is done by the poor, the unskilled, or the retired. Farming is not seen as a profession.
Imagine a typical middle-class party in Nairobi. People are sipping wine, munching on a charcuterie board, and going around talking about what they do. Lawyers, tech founders, politicians, a DJ. Then it’s your turn. You say you’re a farmer.
Here’s what happens.
Everyone is suddenly a farmer like you and has an opinion. They have a farm upcountry where they grow potatoes and visit on weekends. They’ve hired a manager who’s giving them problems. They made some profit and want to expand by another acre. Every single one is a part-time farmer.
They don’t respect farming enough to make it their full-time occupation. In that circle, even the DJ is culturally more respected than you—because he farms part-time after making people shake their backsides at Alchemist the night before.
The only people who farm full-time tend to be those with no alternative: subsistence farmers in rural areas, people who couldn’t find work and returned to ancestral land, and retirees. Armed with pensions, they farm to stay busy while waiting for grandchildren to visit once a year.
There is a serious problem here. Where is the prestige in farming? When will it be cool to be a full-time farmer? No hedge. Just grinding—like an autistic software developer at a high-growth Silicon Valley startup, salivating over stock options and a billion-dollar exit.
What a Real Agricultural Ecosystem Looks Like
When all the above conditions exist—good infrastructure, large farms, government support, and professional farmers—advanced financial markets emerge naturally.
Commodity markets, farmer loans, insurance, mechanisation services, input suppliers—entire ecosystems form around agriculture.
For example, LPOs from beef farmers can be sold in secondary markets to institutional investors, injecting liquidity into the agricultural sector. Specialised companies emerge to focus purely on tractors, pesticides, seed varieties, fertiliser, and logistics.
These companies have customers who can pay. Banks can lend confidently because farmers are competent, large-scale, and have a track record.
In Kenya, we already see this. Farmers with 400 to 6,000 acres can easily get loans from banks like Equity to buy inputs, pay labour, and move produce to market.
The Real Culprit
We cannot keep applying band-aids to agriculture through the smallholder narrative. We do this because major actors are not doing their jobs.
The biggest one that needs a beating is the government. Just build the infrastructure. Implement serious land reforms around farming. Protect farmers. Make farming a prestigious occupation.
Once this happens, the ecosystem around agriculture will form automatically—as it did in the US, the UK, and many other developed nations.
Conclusion
We need bold and unapologetic ideas to fix African agriculture. Building apps and connecting people is an enabler, not the real fix.
We need big changes. This requires a government with big balls.
The result will be a larger, more efficient agricultural sector—one that employs fewer people but produces far more.