Isaac Sesi, the founder of Sesi Technologies Ghana Limited, and the founder of Maungo Craft in Botswana, Bonolo Monthe have emerged winners of the 2019 GoGettaz Agriprenuer Prize.
They each receive a cash prize of $50,000 to expand their businesses.
The ultimate winners of the 2019 GoGettaz Agriprenuer Prize were among 11 finalists who have developed innovative ideas to promote agribusiness to enhance food security in Africa.
They were pronounced winners during the Africa Food Prize award ceremony held in Accra on Thursday, as part of the just ended Africa Green Revolution Alliance (AGRA) forum conference on the theme “Grow Entrepreneurs, Transform Food.”
An initiative of Generation Africa founded and financed by Yara International and ECONET, the GoGettaz programme is meant to empower, encourage and support the youth in Africa who have developed innovative agribusiness ideas to scale them up.
It is also to build on the efforts of other leading institutions to work collaboratively to strengthen the ecosystem that supports young agriprenuers across the continent to their journey from idea to scale.
Mr Sesi, a graduate of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, has developed affordable technologies for farmers and businesses across the agric value chain to help them increase productivity and yield while reducing losses.
The KNUST graduate has developed Grainmate, an affordable grain moisture meter which helps reduce post harvest losses by making it easy for farmers to measure the moisture content in their grains before storage.
In an interview, he said, post harvest losses, especially in the maize sector, remained a big challenge to smallholder farmers and food security threat to the country.
Against this backdrop, Mr Sesi said he decided to develop the Grainmate to help farmers test the moisture of their maize produce, saying the Grainmate was borne out of the research work he did for his first degree.
Ms Monthe, a Botswana, on the other hand was processing a local fruit, marula into oil for the cosmetic industry and sugar free jams for the local and international market.
Her initiative is helping create jobs for farmers in the marula value chain and promoting the health of the people in the country.
Ms Monthe explained that her desire was to convert the marula plant into useful products to create jobs for people, especially women who grow the plant and promote the indigenous plant.
The Chairman and Founder of Econet, Strive Masiyiwa said technology was driving change and promoting agriculture across the world.
He said some of the youth in Africa was making giant strides in the agribusiness sector and had developed innovative ideas to promote the sector and enhance food security on the continent and the programme was meant to help them with funding to expand on their businesses.
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Yara International, Svein Tore Holsethe said agriculture presented a huge opportunity for job creation and the youth must be supported and encouraged to enter into agriculture.
By Kingsley Asare
.
