Farmerline scales climate-smart agriculture for smallholder farmers to secure Africa’s food future

Farmerline is bridging the agricultural data and resource gap for smallholder farmers across West Africa. As a Bright Spot, Farmerline helps farmers boost yields and enhance climate resilience while building more sustainable food systems.

Agriculture remains the backbone of Africa’s economy, with smallholder farmers producing around 70% of Africa’s food supply. Yet, a significant majority of them lack access to financing and climate-smart knowledge, or even necessary contextual information that is accessible in their local languages. This makes improving productivity and adapting to climate change even more challenging. Existing major supply chains also often exclude smallholder farmers, keeping them in cycles of low yields and vulnerability to climate shocks.

Active in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo Farmerline is tackling these barriers by leveraging digital tools and local networks to provide 2.2 million small scale farmers with real-time weather forecasts, market pricing, and agronomic advice via mobile technology. Their mission is to create lasting profit for farmers everywhere by leveraging digital tools like Darli AI, Open Finance and Terra to scale and finance sustainable and regenerative agriculture.

Farmerline’s approach centers on strengthening farmer resilience, deepening partnerships, enhancing financial inclusion and promoting environmental stewardship. Their blended financing model also ensures that farmers receive high-quality seeds, fertilisers and farm equipment, allowing them to increase productivity while adapting to increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

How are Farmerline’s solutions different from mainstream approaches?

Traditional agricultural support systems across Africa have largely focused on top-down interventions, often ignoring farmers' on-the-ground realities and the high costs of inputs and financing. Government subsidy programs and NGO-led initiatives frequently struggle with last-mile delivery, leaving many smallholders without timely access to crucial resources.

Farmerline flips the conventional model by partnering directly with local agribusinesses and rural retailers—known as "agripreneurs"—who act as trusted intermediaries within their communities. With 3,000 agents working across Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, the team deeply understands the cultural, geographical and professional landscape from seed to market nuances.

Farmerline’s digital tools and technology serve farmers' needs by focusing on three essentials: tailored training specific to farm and community conditions, flexible financing to adopt these lessons effectively, and reliable market access to earn sustainable income. Their AI-driven platform tailors advice on local soil conditions, weather patterns, and market trends, making the guidance actionable and context-specific.

These unique solutions include Darli AI for predictive yield insights and real-time multilingual advisory (available in 27 local languages and on basic phones for low bandwidth environments); Terra for traceability, carbon monitoring, and supply chain transparency; and Open Finance for payments, KYC (Know Your Customer), credit scoring, monitoring, and recovery solutions tailored to smallholders and agribusinesses.

By combining technology, finance, and local trust networks, Farmerline ensures that farmers get the right tools at the right time — a game-changing approach to scaling climate-smart agriculture. It’s not just about increasing yields in the face of climate-change; their model enables long-term resilience for millions of smallholder farmers.

"Farmers consistently demonstrate remarkable adaptation by quickly adopting regenerative practices such as intercropping, mulching and organic fertilisers, when given localised training based on the conditions of their farms and communities, flexible financing to match seasonal needs, and market access to generate income and profit from their hard work. Global food systems must recognise that farmers thrive when solutions are tailored to their contexts. Listening to farmers, placing them at the center, and empowering them with practical tools like training, financing, and reliable market access drives sustainable innovation and long-term resilience."—Alloysius Attah, Co-founder & CEO of Farmerline Group

How is Farmerline changing the way we approach the agricultural transition?

Beyond environmental gains, Farmerline has also increased farmer yields by 118% and boosted incomes by at least $306 per season, demonstrating that sustainability and profitability are not mutually exclusive. Farmers using Farmerline’s solutions achieve 2.5 times higher yields and 3.3 times higher incomes, while increasing resilience by 76% within two years.

Farmerline's work underscores agricultural transitions not just as a shift in practices, but as a holistic transformation of trust, livelihoods, and climate resilience through long-term engagement with farmers. By providing accessible market opportunities, responsive financing, sustainable practices and smart climate solutions, Farmerline reimagines agriculture as a pathway to prosperity for smallholder farmers.

Farmerline transforms more than just farming practices; they are also changing the agricultural workforce by becoming one of Ghana’s largest private sector employers in agriculture. This signals a shift: agriculture is no longer seen as subsistence work but as an engine for innovation, economic empowerment, and climate action.

By embedding data-driven, farmer-first solutions into local ecosystems, Farmerline is redefining the agricultural transition—from a slow, fragmented shift to an intentional, scalable movement that places smallholders at the heart of global food security. Through storytelling, community feedback and data-driven evaluations, Farmerline celebrates collective prosperity rather than individual wins. This collaborative approach emphasises resilience in the face of challenges, such as climate shifts or market fluctuations.

"Agriculture promises to spread prosperity, like seeds on fertile ground, transforming lives and communities everywhere. We've witnessed this transformation with large-scale farmers globally; now it's time to ignite the same dreams among small-scale farmers and farmers in emerging markets. Farmerline passionately reimagines traditional pathways, placing small-scale farmers at the very heart of wealth creation and economic empowerment. By nurturing their potential with accessible market opportunities, responsive financing, sustainable practices, and smart climate solutions, we cultivate a future where their labour blossoms into abundant incomes and lasting wealth."
—Alloysius Attah, Co-founder & CEO of Farmerline Group

What could the future look like if Farmerline scales?

Imagine AI-powered data collection and processing hubs readily accessible in rural environments. Farmers not only contribute data to as producers, but also access hyper-local weather insights, soil health diagnostics, and transparent market prices — right from their mobile devices. Alternative supply chain models envisioned by Farmerline aim to directly connect farmers with buyers, reducing middlemen and ensuring fair compensation for their hard work. Where waste is repurposed, farmers co-own processing facilities, and locally produced food is valued over imports. The dependency cycle driven by external market demand and pricing is broken.

No longer vulnerable to volatile markets or climate shocks, Africa’s smallholder farmers could become architects of a food system that is self-sustaining and abundant, wielding real-time data and regenerative practices.

Farmerline’s 2033 impact goals include reaching 15 million farmers globally; enrolling 90,000 agribusinesses; mobilising $3 billion in climate-smart financing through financial institutions; sequestering 200 million tons of CO₂; and creating 15 million agricultural jobs worldwide.

If Farmerline’s model scales, Africa could see more than just a secure food supply—we may also see a shift in power where farmers, once viewed mainly as producers, become custodians of the future, leading Africa into an era of regenerative agriculture.

All images courtesy of Farmerline.

Questions to consider

What role does flexible climate finance play in enabling smallholder farmers to adopt resilient farming practices?

How can alternative supply chain models ensure fair compensation for smallholder farmers while promoting sustainability?

What lessons can global food systems learn from smallholder farmers' ability to adapt through regenerative practices?

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