For Africa’s women smallholder farmers, technologies that could boost productivity and incomes often remain out of reach, not because the solutions are unavailable, but because the cost of accessing them is too high. In Ghana and Senegal, new financing and delivery models are being tested to bring these technologies within reach of women farmers.
Solar-powered irrigation can help farmers manage increasingly unpredictable rainfall. Crop dryers and cold storage can reduce post-harvest losses and give producers more opportunities to sell their harvests. Yet these technologies often require substantial upfront investment, while farmers’ incomes remain seasonal and vulnerable to climate shocks.
The result is a financial mismatch: farmers are expected to invest in equipment long before they can benefit from the additional income it might generate. For women, who often farm small plots with limited capital and face barriers to formal credit, that obstacle can be particularly difficult to overcome.
This leaves many women farmers unable to benefit from technologies that could help them increase production, protect their harvests and earn more from their crops. It also limits the ability of technology providers to reach a large potential customer base across rural Africa.
Closing this gap requires more than making agricultural equipment available. It means rethinking how these technologies are financed, paid for and delivered, so that access reflects the financial realities of smallholder farming
Rethinking how agricultural technology reaches farmers
For agricultural technology providers, expanding access requires reconsidering a business model often built around selling equipment outright.
A solar irrigation system may offer long-term productivity gains, but purchasing one can be unaffordable for a farmer cultivating a small plot. A crop dryer might reduce losses, yet its cost may be difficult to justify when cash is needed for seeds, fertiliser and other immediate expenses. Even when financing is available, repayment schedules that do not align with harvest cycles can discourage adoption.
Alternative models could help overcome these barriers.
Through shared-access arrangements, several farmers can use the same equipment without each having to purchase it. Shared-access and service-based models could allow farmers to use irrigation, drying or storage equipment without purchasing it outright, while layaway arrangements could help spread costs over time.
These arrangements could be particularly relevant for women farmers, reducing the financial commitment required to access productive technologies while limiting exposure to upfront investment risks.
But affordability is only one side of the equation. Technology providers must also find ways to finance equipment, manage maintenance costs and reach customers across dispersed rural communities.
Working with established agricultural networks offers one potential solution. By connecting technology providers with organisations already serving farmers, businesses can reduce distribution costs, aggregate demand and test whether service-based models can operate sustainably.
Putting farmers’ incomes to the test in Senegal and Ghana
Shell Foundation, with support from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), is putting this approach to the test through the West Africa Aggregator Service Platform (WAASP), launched in March 2026 in partnership with Startup Discovery School.
Operating in Ghana and Senegal, the one-year pilot aims to improve women’s access to existing climate-smart agricultural technologies by testing alternative financing, ownership and service-delivery models.
Startup Discovery School coordinates the programme through three established agricultural networks: myAgro in Senegal, and Vitara and Complete Farmer in Ghana. Together, these organisations serve more than 500,000 smallholder farmers, providing an existing distribution base through which new delivery arrangements can be tested.
The programme targets income increases of at least 20% and aims to establish scalable pathways to reach 200,000 farmers by 2030, at least half of them women. Its ambitions extend beyond Ghana and Senegal, with the potential to replicate successful models in other West African markets, including Nigeria.
For Shell Foundation, the challenge is to demonstrate that expanding access to productive clean energy technologies can go hand in hand with building commercially sustainable businesses. If successful, WAASP could offer a model for reaching women farmers who have long been underserved by conventional financing and distribution systems.
Ultimately, the real measure of success will not be how many technologies are introduced, but how many women can afford to use them, increase their incomes and continue benefiting from them long after the pilot ends.
