Nigeria’s broken agricultural supply chain is receiving a US$2.1 million injection of blended capital to arrest rampant food waste and shield smallholder farmers from erratic weather patterns, as local tech firm KAMIM Technologies steps in to anchor a massive 24-month climate-smart infrastructure rollout.
The initiative, dubbed HARVIST an acronym for Hub for Agricultural Resilience through Value-chain, Irrigation, Storage and Technology, is landing at a critical flashpoint for African agriculture.
Sub-Saharan Africa loses up to 40% of its agricultural produce before it ever reaches a consumer’s plate, primarily due to a lack of refrigerated storage and unreliable electricity grids. This systemic failure costs the continent billions of dollars annually, drives up food imports and suppresses smallholder incomes in a region where farming employs over half the workforce.
Under the new 24-month mandate, KAMIM Technologies Ltd will act as the Nigerian delivery lead for the multi-partner consortium. The tech outfit is tasked with executing on-the-ground engineering delivery, installation, commissioning, live testing, operational support and local capacity building across critical farming and market corridors.
The infrastructure arsenal slated for deployment includes solar-powered cold storage, cold-chain logistics networks and irrigation-linked productive-use energy systems.
To bridge the gap between traditional farming and high-yield modernization, the hard infrastructure will be overlaid with an advanced digital stack featuring artificial intelligence analytics, Internet of Things (IoT) data capture, blockchain-enabled product traceability tools, and accessible USSD, web and mobile user interfaces.
The commercial and socio-economic targets outlined in the programme’s framework are high-stakes. HARVIST aims to directly support more than 10,000 farmers and agri-value-chain actors, strictly mandating at least 50% women participation. It is projected to create or support more than 250 jobs spanning industrial installation, daily operations, logistics, maintenance and agronomic training.
Once the systems hit peak operational capacity, the deployment is modeled to preserve up to 2,600 tonnes of food annually, generate approximately 394 MWh of clean electricity per year, displace up to 131,000 litres of expensive diesel fuel annually, and avoid an estimated 350 tCO₂e of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
The capital layout is structured as a complex blended finance package, combining grant funding and partner contributions anchored through the 3DEN Phase II programme, with supplementary equity and in-kind support mobilized directly by the consortium members.
“Every harvest season, we meet farmers who did everything right but still lose income because the infrastructure isn’t there, power is unreliable, there’s nowhere to store produce, irrigation is limited and markets are far. Farmers don’t need another pilot that looks good on paper. They need power that stays on, cold rooms that preserve quality, irrigation that enables year-round productivity, and market access that’s transparent,” said Adekoyejo Kuye, Managing Director of KAMIM Technologies Ltd.
“This funding lets us deliver that end-to-end system across Nigeria, back it with digital tools that work for real farmers, measure the results properly, and scale what works so we cut waste, improve prices, and keep more income in farming communities.”
The deployment builds directly upon KAMIM’s existing commercial portfolio of productive-use energy products, specifically its established “SoCool” and “CoolCycle” systems, which integrate localized solar cooling with proprietary logistical tracking software.
The broader consortium backing the rollout bridges international research institutions and domestic agritech operators. Led by UK-based Nazir Associates Ltd, the group includes specialized entities FarmSpeak, Intuitive Minds Limited, Farmatrix Agro, ACORN, LMD Agro, Yaba College of Technology, the University of Hertfordshire and the University of Greater Manchester.
“We are pleased to be working with KAMIM Technologies and the wider consortium on this important initiative. KAMIM’s expertise in efficient solar power development and clean energy deployment is key to supporting resilient agricultural value chains in Nigeria. Through innovation, local delivery and collaborative expertise, the project has the potential to improve post-harvest systems and benefit farming communities,” said Dr Mohammad Nazir OBE, Lead Partner/CEO of Nazir Associates LTD.
Beyond immediate equipment installations, the intervention is designed to establish a definitive, audit-ready operational framework. It incorporates a standardized monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) architecture to systematically log real-time equipment usage, environmental mitigation metrics and net financial outcomes for beneficiaries.
For international development finance institutions and private equity funds looking at sub-Saharan Africa, the success of the HARVIST model could provide a blueprint for how blended finance can derisk capital-intensive, decentralized infrastructure in emerging frontier markets.
