Agribusiness accelerators as a pathway to scale agriculture innovation

Whether the agrifood sector can create jobs will depend on its ability to shift from growing food to growing businesses.

This ambition sits at the heart of the World Bank Group’s AgriConnect initiative, which focuses on building the right ecosystem—strong cooperatives, market links, and access to finance— to support smallholders and agribusinesses. AgriConnect mobilizes partners and action through three pillars: infrastructure, policy reforms, and capital mobilization.

Under AgriConnect’s infrastructure pillar, prioritizing digital solutions and agriculture innovation is essential, particularly in the face of climate risks. Climate-resilient practices that enhance productivity, efforts to reach the last mile, and targeted financing are essential for farmers and agribusinesses to create jobs.

Implemented by the CGIAR and funded by the World Bank Group, the AICCRA program is making  AgriConnect in Africa a reality - by developing public- and private-sector-driven scaling strategies to make climate-smart agriculture innovations more accessible to smallholders. In Zambia and Ghana, AICCRA’s strategy has focused on supporting agribusinesses to scale these innovations through accelerator programs. 

Agribusiness accelerators: the missing link between innovation, impact, and jobs

A strong agribusiness sector can transform rural areas into engines of jobs and higher incomes. Yet many agribusinesses face persistent obstacles that limit their ability to drive impact, such as high upfront risk and insufficient financing.

By pairing businesses with de-risking grants and technical assistance, accelerators can help build the right infrastructure, mobilize capital, and create the conditions for enterprises to scale innovation, grow, and create jobs.

In Ghana, the AICCRA Accelerator has brought eight agribusinesses into consortia to deploy four bundled solutions. One of the consortia, led by a small business called M&B Seeds, combined climate information services (CIS) with improved seeds and market linkages.

A second consortium led by another seed business, Kukobila Nasia Farms Limited, combined CIS, advisory services, and the provision of machinery to boost sustainable production and soil health for maize and cowpea. Thanks to a partnership with Farm Radio International, the program delivered additional information to farmers in remote areas. These activities enabled 117,000 smallholder farmers to cope with longer dry spells, achieving maize and cowpea yields 71% and 39% higher than the national average.

In Zambia, the AICCRA Accelerator has supported 19 agribusinesses and improved the livelihoods of over 718,000 Zambian farmers by helping scale five agricultural innovation solutions, including drought-tolerant seed varieties. For instance, a partnership between two agribusinesses, PlantCatalyst and Corteva, together with iDE, a non-governmental organization and the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute, enabled 24,200 farmers to access drought-tolerant seed varieties for maize, groundnut, and soybeans. Advice delivered to farmers on digital platforms, training on climate-smart agriculture, and deliberate efforts to connect farmers to markets have accelerated the adoption of these seeds. The result? Farmers are reporting better yields, higher profits, and overall consider themselves more resilient to climate shocks.