As African farmers contend with increasingly frequent droughts, pest outbreaks, and soil degradation, climate-smart agriculture (CSA), which involves managing farms, crops, livestock, and forests to mitigate and adapt to climate change, has become mission-critical. At the same time, farmers aiming to compete in premium export markets are under growing pressure to overhaul how they farm. Meeting the standards of global buyers now requires climate-friendly production, tighter waste management, and verifiable output tracking. This has opened the door to a new wave of climate-smart agtechs (as highlighted in our previous article ), promising both resilience and market access. Yet findings from agtechs interviewed for Seeds of Impact (Briter’s new catalogue spotlighting impact data from agtech and agrifood innovators across Africa) suggest that adoption of climate-smart practices amongst farmers remains uneven, and farmers have not been sufficiently primed to understand the full value of CSA. In practice, most farmers will only adopt climate-smart practices when they clearly translate into higher yields, lower risk, or improved income.
“Currently, many farmers and cooperatives focus on short-term survival,” says Jonah Chege, CEO of Ketha Technologies , a Kenya-based agtech connecting rural farmers to formal markets and financial services, featured in the catalogue . “Climate-smart practices are often perceived as costly and can reduce short-term margins, which limits adoption. As these practices become more affordable, we expect uptake to grow.” Agtechs we spoke to report productivity increases of up to 50% and income gains as high as 94% among farmers who have adopted climate-smart practices.
Phygital climate-smart systems: the engine behind monetised resilience
As noted in our previous article on climate-smart agriculture companies, convincing smallholder farmers to adopt climate-smart practices requires a mix of online and offline tools. “Even the simplest new product needs a 'person in the middle' who is either going to do it for [the farmers] or help them do it,” said Alexandra Ngaiza, Business and Partnership lead at Tanzania-based MazaoHub .
Previously, climate-focused organisations used SMS or app-only approaches, which struggled with trust gaps, low literacy, and limited ability to prove that recommended practices were actually implemented. Agtechs who spoke to Briter are increasingly adopting “phygital” models that combine digital rails (apps and dashboards) with dense human networks of local agents, field officers, and community groups. The phygital model allows agtechs to link advisories to individual farmer profiles, collect geotagged photos and field observations through field staff, run extension surveys, and analyse usage data across apps and USSD platforms.
Alongside adopting phygital models to support CSA uptake, the agtechs we interviewed are converging on three main pathways to close the adoption gap: connecting farmers to premium buyers for traceable, sustainably produced crops; using farm‑level data to de‑risk credit and insurance and lower the cost of capital; and unlocking external revenues through carbon credits and circular economy models.
1. Who pays? Premium buyers and regenerative contracts
This pathway centres on off‑takers that pay more for traceable, sustainably produced crops and are willing to co‑fund farmers’ transition to regenerative practices. Nigeria-based Zowasel structures regenerative programmes for major breweries and beverage producers in Nigeria and Tanzania, shifting farmers from costly synthetic fertilisers to organic manures and biological inputs. This shift cuts input costs by up to 50% and earns farmers around a 30% premium through sustainability fees and higher market prices.
By embedding “who pays” into long‑term offtake contracts, these models shift sustainability from donor‑funded pilots into core commercial relationships, giving farmers predictable revenue streams that justify upfront practice changes and investments in soil health. Agrolinking illustrates a complementary route: by mapping farms, assigning sustainability scores aligned with frameworks such as FAO’s SAFA , and attaching QR codes that prove compliance with regulations like the EU Deforestation‑free Regulation (EUDR), it enables farmers to maintain or unlock access to premium European markets where compliant buyers pay higher prices for verified, deforestation‑free supply.
2. Lenders and insurers reprice risk using climate-smart data
Historically, lenders and insurers have viewed smallholders as high-risk due to limited visibility into farm practices, household cash flows, and exposure to climate-related shocks. As phygital CSA platforms accumulate farm-level data (on yields, input use, adherence to agronomic recommendations, and repayment behaviour), climate-smart practices can begin to serve as a signal of income stability and a lower probability of default.
Platforms such as Farm Monitor , CoAmana , and MobiPay integrate agronomic and financial data into scoring models that segment farmers by performance and resilience, enabling lenders to underwrite loans with greater confidence and, over time, to adjust pricing and terms based on observed rather than assumed risk. Some focus on predictive de‑risking, using yield and climate data to anticipate income volatility and inform tools like partial guarantees, index insurance, and structured input finance. Others digitise Village Savings and Loan Associations to formalise repayment histories and reveal behavioural patterns, which can matter as much as long production records in thin‑data environments.
Taken together, these approaches recast CSA from a compliance requirement into a financial infrastructure that makes smallholder risk legible for banks and insurers. As lenders begin to use CSA-linked data to price risk, they may be able to extend credit and insurance to more farmers and adjust terms to reflect actual farm performance better, although long-term evidence that this consistently reduces default rates or borrowing costs is still limited.
3. Who pays? Carbon and circularity as farm-level subsidies
Beyond buyers and lenders, climate-smart agriculture gets financed through climate finance and circular input models. Advances in new technology (like satellite imagery, remote sensing, and machine learning) have made it cheaper to measure soil carbon and land use change. Smallholder farmers, especially those farming 1–2 acres, who were once excluded, can now participate in carbon markets that were previously out of reach. In effect, these carbon markets function as subsidies, helping to cover the cost of adopting climate-smart practices at the farm level.
Platforms such as Kenyan-based Shamba Records and US-based Boomitra are replacing intensive soil sampling with digital measurement approaches that make it economically viable to aggregate and pay farmers for verified carbon sequestration and emissions reductions. In practice, these carbon payments function as income stabilisers: they monetise regenerative practices that may not maximise yields in the short run but improve soil structure, nutrient retention, and long‑term productive potential.
Circular input models (used by Safi Organics , Regen Organics , and Vermi-Farm ) extend the effect by converting organic waste into compost, biochar, and organic fertilisers, reducing dependence on volatile, emissions‑intensive synthetic fertilisers whose prices have surged in recent years. When farmers adopt circular inputs alongside regenerative practices, the benefits stack: direct cash from carbon, lower recurring input expenditure, and improved soil performance that reduces water and fertiliser needs over time, all of which effectively subsidise climate‑smart practices and tie payments to resilience and emissions outcomes rather than yield alone.
Turning climate resilience into profit
One thing is clear: CSA practices are currently effective on the continent because they improve farmers' incomes and reduce their risk. Whether through higher offtake prices, better loan terms, or direct climate payments, farmers adopt climate-smart practices when the financial upside is visible and immediate. As more agtech ventures plug into carbon markets, EUDR‑grade traceability, and green finance, monetised resilience could become the default pathway through which smallholders engage with the climate agenda. For a closer look at the companies building these models (and the data behind them), explore AgBase .
