AquaFarms Africa

At AquaFarms Africa, we address food sovereignty and youth employment across Africa. By making urban agriculture broadly accessible through AFA’s aquaponic system and a unique social franchising model, we strive to unlock the wealth opportunity in the food space for local entrepreneurs. 

With our locally made and cost efficient systems, we employ aquaponics (a combination of fish farming and soilless agriculture) to locally and sustainably produce fish and niche vegetables and fruits that are normally imported. With this focus, the company satisfies the demand in the high-end customer segment, thereby increasing revenues for franchisees and keeping money in local economies. We provide youth with opportunities to launch aquaponics system franchises using tech solutions to bring the finished product to niche markets in a farm to table chain.

70% of food products consumed in Africa are imported. We don’t own our food, and this represents billions of dollars lost from our local economies. Companies that import fresh produce complain of inefficiency of both imports and local produce. Across West Africa, agricultural growth is limited by many environmental and structural issues that reduce capacity to supply the local market.

Africa is home to the youngest population in the world with over 600 million under the age of 25. As of now, 72% of African youth are under or unemployed and 11 million youths are expected to enter the labor market every year for the next decade. Although agriculture is often lauded as Africa’s greatest potential for job creation, youth are often left out of the equation despite being the largest unemployed population on the continent. Because very few auxiliary or support services exist within a depressed private sector, a new entrepreneur must manage the entire farming value chain, which is difficult and costly for startups. Lack of investment in agriculture and lack of access to capital has accelerated rural exodus and congested urban areas. 

We have designed an agricultural system that produces year-round regardless of country conditions, increases productivity per square meter by 10 times, and addresses food sovereignty.

Our AquaFarms are 12x12 meter aquaponics systems that are low-cost, easy-to-use, and can produce about 1 ton of vegetable, fruit, and fish product per month. We train young women to become AquaFarmers, managing the production of their own franchise.

Using group economics, we manage the operational value chain – providing franchisees with marketing, sales, quality control, logistics, inputs, low-cost financing and shared land and water. 

We, our franchisees, and investors use our proprietary app to manage data aggregation, access digital accounting, and monitor progress of AquaFarm investments from anywhere in the world. 

Our farms are placed in proximity to our clients giving them fresh, high-quality niche products within a matter of minutes, reducing importation and bringing funds back into the local economy.

We are passionate about elevating the economic empowerment of women and young Africans. Our climate-controlled AquaFarms allow us to grow produce atypical to tropical climates, enabling higher profit margins, and giving our franchisees incomes 10 times that of the national average.

AquaFarms Africa seeks to address Africa’s women and urban youth unemployment problem and food insecurity, while simultaneously introducing a profitable and clean farming practice into urban areas and stimulating local economies. AFA’s founding members have spent the last decade in West Africa specifically using human centered design to answer the question: how might we reduce the youth unemployment rate in West Africa while developing local entrepreneurial ecosystems? We have held mind mapping, open space and ideation process workshops every year over the last 10 years in communities across Guinea, Benin and Ghana. 

This internal knowledge led us to work with a cohort of young women in Conakry to design an easy to use and affordable aquaponics system: a simple tech and high impact solution to urban farming. By providing youth with opportunities to launch aquaponics systems through an adapted social franchise concept, we give them access to technical knowledge, access to more lucrative markets, access to capital, access to low cost inputs and access to a logistics chain. By using tech solutions to bring a finished product to niche markets in a farm to table chain, we are addressing their concerns of food sovereignty and security, unemployment and environmental sustainability. 

AquaFarms Africa empowers women and youth in sub-Saharan Africa with opportunities to work in the digital economy. The youth are Guinean nationals ages 15-24 and the women of all ages. Tech-enabled business practice is a new concept being introduced into the local communities to enhance economic growth. Education, financing and ease of access have been major obstacles women and youth have faced in attempting to achieve economic inclusion. By providing education, training, and equipment needed to operate the aquaponics systems, AquaFarms Africa will provide greater inclusion in the digital economy.

We currently have one AquaFarm operating in Conakry, Guinea. We have users and customers. Currently, we have 15 users, who are young entrepreneurs who launch and run our AquaFarms as franchises. We have 3 customers (with contracts pending on 5 more), which are hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and corporations that would otherwise be importing their produce and agricultural products. 

AquaFarms Africa is innovative in three ways: our approach to farming in urban cities, our business model and our target market. Our model makes urban aquaponics farming accessible, commercializable and scalable. 

Across Africa, countries like Guinea have fast growing urban areas with limited job opportunities and traditional spaces for agriculture. AquaFarms Africa’s aquaponic system is an affordable and simple soilless alternative to traditional farming. Our ability to place our 12x12 meter systems throughout urban cities, allows us to penetrate local niche markets while creating urban employment. By introducing AFA in urban environments, we include urban youth in the agricultural conversation and transform cityscapes. AquaFarms Africa not only sustainably addresses accessibility to healthy and sustainable food, but also the need to boost youth employment faced in urban areas. 

Our adaptation of social franchising allows us to build food sovereignty through local ownership of the value chain, thereby creating jobs, sharing wealth and reducing youth unemployment in urban areas. Our tech-enabled farms and app are a game changer in Guinea and West Africa in general: we give our farmers access to digital services such as online accounting and also provide our customers a reliable way to order produce online. Both of these aspects are unique across West Africa. 

Our first AquaFarm is currently serving 15 people directly. In one year, with investment funds, we will be serving 1280 people directly. In year 5, our business will be serving 50,000 people directly across 5 West African capital cities. 

People directly served include AFA staff, AquaFarmers/Franchisees, and the community members in direct proximity to an AquaFarm. 

AquaFarms Africa aims to create economic value via sales, lowered costs, and increased investment in franchises, paired with customer loyalty and product quality. The metrics most central to measuring our impact and success are the following: number of franchises launched, number of jobs created, sales volume, production volume, and number of new clients. Over the next year we are launching a new program in Guinea, streamlining our logistics processes, and improving our tech monitoring and management tools.

We have 3 director level staff: CEO, COO, and CTO. We also have an advisory board member, with the idea of expanding the board. We have 2 full-time staff members and 2 part-time staff members.

AquaFarms Africa’s team is made up of the two co-founders, Wiatta Thomas and Bequita Mahama, CTO Arondo Holmes, Sarah McGee, and financial entrepreneur Nnamdi Chiekwu. Shortly after Wiatta Thomas and Bequita Mahama met online through an African repatriation group, they both realized they were seriously considering launching aquaponics businesses to mitigate food importation and support wealth building and local production and decided to launch AquaFarms Africa. Being inspired and motivated by their passion and expertise, Nnamdi Chiekwu became AquaFarms Africa’s main investor and partner. 

Wiatta, AFA co-founder and CEO and member of the Harambe Class of 2020, has spent the last 9 years building the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Guinea by founding Dare to Innovate, a youth incubator, Natri, a farm-to-table supply chain social business, and Spark Rise Ventures, an investment fund for African ideas, and AWE, Inc., a sustainable mineral trading and commodities company. Bequita, AFA co-founder and COO, comes with 7 years of experience in designing and building aquaponics systems in the US and Ghana and is the in-house designer of our proprietary AquaFarms. Nnamdi Chiekwu, advisory board member of AFA, is a finance entrepreneur with a decade of experience advising institutional investors and fund managers on private equity fund placements and transactions. Arondo is an agricultural engineer with 20+ years of experience in equipment design and HVAC. Sarah is our Fundraising and Social Media Manager who specializes in gender and agriculture projects. 

Our team embodies diversity. We have a mix of older and young members, various ethnicities and races, and diverse academic/ socio-economic backgrounds. We also have more women than men in the management team. 

Our working style is very inclusive and not so hierarchical. We prefer to keep lines of communication open to anyone and not follow strict channels or protocols when wanting to discuss ideas or concerns. 

COVID has had a significant effect on our growth. In January 2020, we were on track to receive $60,000 in investment to expand our capacity to supply 3 more restaurants in the Conakry area and support 15 more users through June. However, as all large scale restaurants in Conakry closed during the pandemic, we had to significantly scale back our operations.

Something incredibly important to the next steps in growing our business is awareness and publicity. We need capital, exposure and technical support to fully realize our vision. The more exposure that we are able to garner, the more access we will have to the resources we need to bring this incredibly impactful solution to fruition. 

The nature of AFA’s social franchise model makes it an excellent investment opportunity for the diaspora and those looking to invest in the continent. Exposure allows us to promote the concept to the target markets we are looking to attract. One of our main ambitions is to create wealth through food sovereignty and we believe the African diaspora has a huge role to play in investing in this sector. Our goal is to make that investment simpler and more transparent. 

Beyond capital to expand our vision, we need technical support to streamline our concept and increase our institutional competencies. Being a part of the SOLVE community will give us access to the synergy of a network of food and ag tech pioneers who can give us insights into this industry.

There are three areas in which we are seeking partnerships: 

1) Technology: We have 2 technologies we are using to reach our goals; our 12 x 12 aquaponics system and our process management application. We are constantly looking for technical mentors and partners to help us improve our system and reduce costs. This includes aquaponics, aquaculture, hydroponics and agricultural specialists, renewable energy specialists, as our systems are run on renewable energy, and tech geeks. 

2) Funding: We are looking for patient capital and investors looking to support transformational African development.

3) Marketing, media and exposure: We would like to align with influencers, media companies, accelerator programs, incubators and hubs that will allow us to gain the exposure we need to promote our investment opportunity to diaspora investors as well as obtain publicity

There are three areas in which we are seeking partnerships: 

We are looking to partner with aquaponics, aquaculture, hydroponics and agricultural specialists, renewable energy specialists, as our systems are run on renewable energy, and tech companies that can advise us on the application that manages our operations. 

We are looking to partner with impact investment firms and investor groups looking to support transformational African development. 

We would like to align with influencers, media companies, accelerator programs, incubators and hubs that will allow us to gain the exposure we need to promote our investment opportunity to diaspora investors. We really want to promote the idea of social franchising as a simple way to invest in the continent.

We are passionate about elevating the economic empowerment of women and young Africans. Our climate-controlled AquaFarms allow us to grow produce atypical to tropical climates, enabling higher profit margins, and giving our franchisees incomes 10 times that of the national average. 

AquaFarms Africa empowers women and youth in sub-Saharan Africa with opportunities to work in the digital economy. The youth are Guinean nationals ages 15-24 and the women of all ages. Tech-enabled business practice is a new concept being introduced into the local communities to enhance economic growth. Education, financing and ease of access have been major obstacles they've faced in attempting to achieve economic inclusion. By providing education, training, and equipment needed to operate the aquaponics systems, AquaFarms Africa will provide greater inclusion in the digital economy. 

We can use the Innovation for Women Prize to expand our low-cost loan fund, which will enable us to support more entrepreneurial Guinean women who want to learn how to run their own business. 

To combat natural and man-made phenomenon such as water shortages, soil loss/erosion, reliance on fossil fuel inputs, and climate change, AquaFarms Africa is introducing aquaponics, a marriage of fish farming and soil-less vegetable farming in a highly efficient integrated ecosystem, to urban centers aimed at developing youth entrepreneurship. The fish provide an organic food source for the plants and the plants filter the water for the fish. This integrated system provides massive solutions to ecological and environmental issues while quadrupling production in comparison to traditional farming methods. It uses 95% less water than traditional farming, we can harvest our crops year round, in any weather, throughout the continent, and because aquaponics recycles the water in the system, we can grow in droughts and areas with little water.

AquaFarms Africa empowers women and youth in sub-Saharan Africa with opportunities to work in the digital economy. The youth are Guinean nationals ages 15-24 and the women of all ages. Tech-enabled business practice is a new concept being introduced into the local communities to enhance economic growth. Education, financing and ease of access have been major obstacles they've faced in attempting to achieve economic inclusion. By providing education, training, and equipment needed to operate the aquaponics systems, AquaFarms Africa will provide greater inclusion in the digital economy.