Most conversations about African agriculture begin on a farm.

This one began on a road.

The photograph was unremarkable in one sense because it has become all too familiar across many parts of Africa. A truck carrying freshly harvested produce had overturned, its cargo scattered across the roadside before it could reach its destination. Weeks of labour lay exposed to the sun, vulnerable to spoilage, theft and contamination. Somewhere beyond the frame, a farmer would almost certainly earn less than expected. A buyer would receive less produce than ordered. Consumers, eventually, would pay more for food that had become scarcer simply because it never completed its journey.

To many people scrolling through LinkedIn, it looked like another unfortunate accident.

To Nigerian agribusiness entrepreneur and commodity aggregator Matthew Emmanuel Baka, it represented something much larger.

“A farmer cannot raise $1 million to produce,” he wrote. “An aggregator cannot raise $1 million to build a warehouse or structure a reliable supply chain. But an agritech app can raise millions of dollars for an idea that hasn’t touched a single farm.” He continued with a challenge that struck a nerve across the continent: “Investors keep funding the layer on top. Almost nobody is funding the layer underneath – the production, storage and transport system that makes anything worth digitizing in the first place.” 

It was an intentionally provocative argument. But rather than descending into the familiar “technology versus traditional agriculture” debate that often dominates social media, something unusual happened. The discussion became one of the most thoughtful conversations about African food systems that we have seen in recent months.

Founders. Farmers. Commodity traders. Cold-chain operators. Supply-chain specialists. Agritech entrepreneurs. Logistics experts. Investors. Development practitioners. Many disagreed on emphasis. 

Remarkably few disagreed on the diagnosis. Instead, each participant illuminated a different part of the same problem.

By the time the discussion had run its course, the conversation was no longer about an overturned truck.

It had become a conversation about what Africa chooses to finance, what it continues to neglect, and why those choices matter far beyond agriculture.

More Than a Road Accident

Matthew’s argument resonated because it challenged a pattern many practitioners recognise instinctively.

Across Africa, technology has become one of the most attractive narratives for investors seeking scalable solutions. Mobile applications promise transparency. Artificial intelligence promises efficiency. Satellite imagery promises precision agriculture. Digital marketplaces promise better market access. Financial technology promises inclusion.

These innovations are real, and many are already delivering measurable value. Yet Matthew’s point was not that technology lacks value. It was that technology often sits on top of physical systems that remain profoundly underdeveloped.

The best farm management platform cannot compensate for an impassable rural road. A sophisticated digital marketplace cannot preserve tomatoes that spoil while waiting for transport. An electronic payment platform cannot replace a warehouse that does not exist. A mobile application cannot prevent a truck from overturning because the road beneath it has deteriorated.

“This is the part nobody puts in a pitch deck,” Matthew observed, arguing that Africa continues to lose between 20 and 40 per cent of its harvest before it ever reaches a market because of poor storage, broken transport systems and the absence of reliable logistics. 

Whether one agrees with every aspect of that framing is almost beside the point.

The image forced an uncomfortable question.

What if Africa’s greatest agricultural challenge is no longer producing food, but moving it?

When Practitioners Begin Finishing Each Other’s Sentences

One reason the discussion stood out was the calibre of the responses.

Instead of defending individual business models or professional interests, many contributors expanded the conversation.

Wilbert Chaniwa, Founder and CEO of RIC Brands, immediately recognised the financing dilemma that sits between traditional infrastructure and venture-backed innovation.

Cold-chain logistics, he noted, occupy an uncomfortable space. They are capital-intensive, require patience and rarely produce the rapid growth curves that venture investors seek. At the same time, they are often considered too commercial for grant funding or conventional development assistance. As a result, they fall into what he described as the gap “where most of Africa’s agricultural value quietly disappears.” 

It was a powerful observation because it explained why obvious problems often remain unsolved.

Everyone agrees that warehouses matter. Everyone agrees that cold chains reduce losses. Everyone agrees that transport determines whether food reaches markets. Yet these investments frequently struggle to attract capital because they do not fit neatly into existing financing models.

Jonathan Sobowale approached the issue from another angle. “The major reason the agribusiness sector in Nigeria is still considered a risky venture and unpredictable,” he wrote, “is that nobody is funding the layer underneath.” 

Risk, in other words, is not simply a characteristic of agriculture. It is often a consequence of underinvestment.

Denis K., Chief Executive Officer of SokoFresh, added another layer to the discussion. Technology, he argued, can certainly scale through downloads and software adoption. But “it cannot keep the harvest fresh or carry a single grain or fruit from the farmer to the right buyer.”  That sentence deserves careful attention.

For all the excitement surrounding digital agriculture, food remains stubbornly physical. Tomatoes still bruise. Milk still spoils. Fish still requires refrigeration. Grain still needs drying. Cassava still deteriorates. The biological realities of agriculture cannot be digitised away. Technology may coordinate the movement of food. It cannot replace the movement itself.

The Numbers Tell a Similar Story

What made the LinkedIn discussion particularly compelling is that it echoed conclusions emerging from some of the world’s most important food-systems research.

The 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) paints a sobering picture.

An estimated 309 million Africans experienced hunger in 2025, representing one in every five people on the continent. Even more striking, 66.6 percent of Africans could not afford a healthy diet. If current trends continue, Africa could account for roughly 56 percent of the world’s undernourished population by 2030. 

Those figures are often interpreted as evidence that Africa must simply produce more food.

Production certainly matters. But the SOFI report points to another reality that receives far less public attention.

The majority of the costs consumers pay for food are incurred after crops leave the farm.

Transport. Storage. Processing. Wholesale distribution. Logistics. Energy. Packaging. Market coordination.

These post-farmgate activities account for approximately 70 to 75 per cent of consumer food expenditure, while as much as 40 per cent of value-chain costs accumulate in the midstream segments of agricultural markets. 

This fundamentally changes how we think about food systems.

Agriculture does not end when harvesting begins. Nor does it end when harvesting finishes. The journey between farm and consumer is not a supporting activity. It is agriculture.

The Hidden Middle

Economists increasingly refer to this overlooked segment as the hidden middle.

It consists of the businesses that most consumers rarely think about but which determine whether food reaches markets efficiently.

Commodity aggregators. Warehouse operators. Transport companies. Cold-chain providers. Processors. Wholesalers. Quality assurance services. Packhouses. Market intermediaries.

Without them, smallholder farmers remain disconnected from commercial markets. Supermarkets cannot source consistent volumes. Processors struggle to secure reliable raw materials. Without them, exporters cannot guarantee quality. Banks hesitate to finance agricultural transactions. 

Ironically, these businesses rarely appear in popular narratives about agricultural innovation. The public conversation often oscillates between celebrating farmers and celebrating technology. 

The enterprises connecting the two receive comparatively little attention. Yet many participants in Matthew’s discussion returned repeatedly to precisely this point.

As one practitioner observed, the challenge is not merely producing food. It is financing and operating the commercial systems that move food. That distinction may prove far more important than it first appears.

Why the debate wasn’t really about infrastructure versus agritech, and what Africa’s food system can learn from it.

It would have been easy for the conversation to end where many online debates do, with two opposing camps defending their positions. Instead, something more interesting happened.

Matthew Baka’s critique of investor priorities prompted an equally thoughtful response from Deina Mayaki, Founder and CEO of AGRIARCHE, one of Africa’s better-known agritech entrepreneurs. Rather than dismissing Matthew’s frustration, she acknowledged the same realities while challenging his conclusion. 

“I wouldn’t say roads and infrastructure don’t pitch well,” she wrote. “I’d say the path to infrastructure financing is visibility and transparency into the system. No vagueness. Tech is the enabler of that visibility, not a replacement for the road itself.” 

It was an important distinction. 

For Deina, the problem was not that Africa had invested too much in technology. It was that too little of the available investment had reached businesses capable of making agricultural systems more transparent, measurable and investable. Roads, warehouses and logistics remain indispensable, but investors are unlikely to finance them at scale if they cannot see how products move, how businesses perform or how capital will be repaid.

The point becomes even sharper later in her post.

“If money has come into agriculture and we still have these problems,” she observed, “it means the money didn’t go to the right hands.” 

That sentence quietly reframed the entire discussion. The question was no longer whether agriculture needed technology or infrastructure. It became whether Africa had developed the systems necessary to direct capital to where it could have the greatest impact.

Two Perspectives, One Diagnosis

Among the dozens of responses, one contribution stood out for bridging the apparent divide.

Bayo Adewoye, Co-Founder and CEO of Agrovesto, argued that the real weakness was not infrastructure or technology in isolation but the absence of an integrated ecosystem. Unlike financial technology, where banks, payment providers, regulators and fintech companies increasingly depend on one another, African agribusiness often remains fragmented. Farmers, aggregators, logistics providers, insurers, lenders and processors frequently operate in parallel rather than as parts of a coordinated system. 

His most striking observation was that farmers remain “invisible to the system.”

Without reliable data, transaction histories or coordinated supply chains, lenders cannot properly assess risk. Investors struggle to distinguish high-performing businesses from weak ones. Insurance becomes expensive. Logistics become inefficient. Market access remains inconsistent.

Technology, in this context, is not competing with warehouses.

It is helping to make warehouses, farmers, aggregators and buyers visible enough to finance.

Matthew himself agreed. Responding directly to Bayo, he suggested that the solution might not be “more dashboards,” but rather technology built around farmers and aggregators who are already doing the hard work on the ground. 

That exchange may have been the most important moment in the entire discussion.

It demonstrated that the disagreement was largely about sequencing rather than destination. 

Both men were describing different parts of the same system.

Why Investors Keep Missing the Middle

The conversation also revealed a persistent blind spot in African agricultural investment.

For years, development finance institutions, governments and venture investors have concentrated much of their attention at two ends of the value chain.

One end is production: seeds, fertiliser, irrigation, extension services and mechanisation. The other is technology: digital marketplaces, farm-management software, precision agriculture, financial technology and data platforms. Between those two sits an enormous commercial ecosystem that receives comparatively little attention.

Aggregators. Warehouse operators. Cold-chain businesses. Transport companies. Commodity traders. Rural logistics providers. Primary processors. Packaging companies. 

These enterprises make agriculture commercially possible.

The International Finance Corporation has repeatedly highlighted what it describes as the “missing middle” of agricultural finance. While smallholder farmers collectively face an annual financing gap of approximately US$42 billion, agricultural SMEs, including aggregators, processors and logistics businesses, face an additional financing gap estimated at around US$75 billion. Together, these enterprises form the commercial backbone connecting farms to markets, yet they remain chronically underserved by appropriate finance.

That helps explain why so many practitioners immediately identified with Matthew’s post.

The issue was never simply about roads. It was about the businesses responsible for making roads economically meaningful.

What the World’s Largest Development Institutions Are Now Saying

Interestingly, the conversation unfolding on LinkedIn mirrors a broader shift taking place within global food-systems thinking.

The World Bank has increasingly emphasised food corridors rather than isolated infrastructure projects. Instead of evaluating roads, warehouses or ports individually, its recent work examines how transport networks, logistics hubs, border crossings and markets function together as integrated systems that determine whether food reaches consumers efficiently.

Similarly, IFAD’s work on agricultural value chains argues that successful transformation depends not only on increasing production but on strengthening the commercial relationships linking producers, service providers, processors, buyers and financial institutions.

Even the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2026 report, while primarily focused on hunger and nutrition, points repeatedly to the importance of logistics, electricity, research, transport, digital connectivity and functioning markets in reducing the cost of healthy diets. 

The convergence is striking. Whether one begins with hunger statistics, transport economics or agricultural finance, the conclusion increasingly looks the same. Food systems succeed or fail as systems.

The Cost of Thinking in Silos

One reason this matters is that agricultural investments often continue to be designed as isolated projects.

A government may finance irrigation. A donor may support digital farmer registration. A commercial bank launches an agricultural credit programme. A processor builds a factory. A startup develops a marketplace.

Each initiative may perform well within its own objectives.

Yet the overall food system remains weak because the individual pieces were never designed to reinforce one another.

A processor cannot operate efficiently if farmers lack working capital. Farmers cannot expand production if reliable buyers remain uncertain. Buyers cannot commit to contracts if logistics remain inconsistent. Banks cannot lend confidently if inventories cannot be verified. Cold-chain operators struggle if electricity is unreliable. Technology platforms cannot create trust where standards and institutions remain weak.

The result is a landscape filled with successful projects but underperforming systems.

That may be the central lesson emerging from the LinkedIn discussion.

Africa’s agricultural challenge is not primarily a shortage of innovation. It is a shortage of integration.

Toward a Different Investment Philosophy

If there is one idea that should shape the next decade of agricultural investment across Africa, it is this:

Infrastructure, technology, finance and institutions should no longer be planned independently.

Every major investment should begin with a simple question.

What value chain are we trying to strengthen?

Only then should governments, investors and development partners ask what combination of roads, storage, finance, digital systems, research, standards and logistics is required to make that value chain commercially viable.

Sometimes the answer will indeed be a road. Sometimes it will be warehouse finance. Sometimes it will be better market information. Sometimes it will be farmer organisation. Sometimes it will be digital traceability. Sometimes it will be cold storage.

The point is not to privilege one category over another. It is to identify the binding constraint preventing the entire system from performing.

A New Lens for AgroCentric

The discussion also reinforces an idea that has increasingly shaped AgroCentric’s own thinking. 

Agriculture should not be viewed merely as farming. Nor should it be viewed simply as agribusiness.

It is an interconnected agrifood system in which production, logistics, finance, technology, policy and markets continuously influence one another.

That perspective has profound implications. It changes how we evaluate startups. It changes how governments prioritise infrastructure. It changes how investors assess opportunity. It changes how development partners design programmes. Most importantly, it changes the questions we ask.

Instead of asking whether Africa needs more agritech, we should ask whether technology is solving the most important constraint within a specific value chain.

Instead of asking whether governments should build more warehouses, we should ask who will operate them sustainably and how they will be financed.

Instead of celebrating the number of farmers registered on a platform, we should ask whether those farmers now earn higher incomes, lose less produce and gain better access to markets.

Those are system questions, and they tend to produce better investments.

Beyond the Truck

By the end of the discussion, the overturned truck had become something of a metaphor.

It represented not merely an unfortunate accident but the accumulated consequences of dozens of disconnected decisions.

The road that was never repaired. The warehouse that was never financed. The logistics company that never expanded. The processor operating below capacity. The lender unable to assess risk. The technology platform disconnected from commercial reality. The policy designed without considering the rest of the value chain.

Each played a role. None alone explains the outcome. Together, they determine whether food reaches markets, or ends up scattered across a roadside.

That is why the original debate ultimately matters.

Matthew Baka was right to remind us that physical infrastructure remains indispensable.

Deina Mayaki was equally right to argue that transparency, coordination and technology are essential for directing capital toward that infrastructure. 

The comments from Wilbert Chaniwa, Bayo Adewoye, Denis K., Ganiu Okeowo and many others completed the picture by demonstrating that Africa’s food-system challenge is not one of competing priorities but of missing connections. 

The future of African agriculture will not be determined by choosing between roads and software. It will be determined by how effectively the continent learns to connect farmers, aggregators, logistics providers, processors, financiers, governments and technology into functioning commercial systems.

The truck, in the end, was never the story. The system behind it was.