HalisiGro

HalisiGro, operating under Shambani Pro

HalisiGro

Building food security and nutrition by enabling smallholder farmers to adopt climate resilient farming and become financially sustainable.

Nairobi, Kenya

KEN

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

We are addressing the urgent challenge of food insecurity affecting over 1.3 million smallholder farmers (SHFs) in Kenya and 65 million across sub-Saharan Africa. Many of these farmers live in extreme poverty, earning less than $1.50 per day and lacking the information and technologies to invest in improved yields. Food insecurity is further exacerbated by accelerating climate change. SHFs face worsening conditions, including declining soil fertility, unpredictable weather patterns, and reduced productivity. Most rely on rain-fed agriculture, making them highly vulnerable to droughts and erratic rainfall. Existing aggressive farming practices lead to further degradation of soil and reduced yields, perpetuating the cycle of food insecurity and poverty. Regenerative agriculture (and our technologies to implement these) have proven to reverse these effects such as restoring soil health, increasing yields, and improving biodiversity. Adoption among SHFs remains low due to a lack of SHF centric solution/ approaches that provide technical knowledge and long-term support tailored to their needs. Existing regenerative agriculture models often focus on large-scale farms, leaving smallholders without a clear pathway to transition. This gap highlights the need for solutions that equip SHFs with the knowledge & resources necessary to adopt regenerative practices and build resilience against climate change.

Our innovation is transforming food production in sub-Saharan Africa by empowering smallholder farmers (SHFs) to achieve environmental and income resilience. We are building a scalable, financially self-sustaining and tech enabled business model that empowers smallholder farmers to transition to regenerative farming (using a tested and proven traditional method that has been successfully used to restore degraded lands in desert and arid regions) guaranteeing food security, climate adaptability and long-term economic transformation. By restoring biodiversity and improving soil health we create a food system that is both productive and sustainable. Our integrated, SHF-centric approach provides end-to-end support to ensure an effortless transition. We offer tailored training, 1-on-1 coaching, access to inputs, and guaranteed markets leveraging our USSD-enabled demand and supply forecasting platform. This ecosystem approach makes it easier for SHFs to transition by reducing risk, optimizing production, and ensuring guaranteed market access. We are scaling this approach at the SHF level in a way that is both commercially viable and economically transformative. Halisi Gro is not just a farming solution. It is a movement towards a resilient, food-secure Africa.

Our target population are smallholder farmers (SHFs) who earn less than $1.50 per day, own small land parcels (~2–3 acres) and rely on farming as their primary income source. Most SHFs depend on rain-fed agriculture, and their farmlands are heavily overused. The use of harmful pesticides also strips the soils of their nutrients leading to declining soil fertility and reduced productivity. This results in food insecurity and traps SHFs in a cycle of poverty. Most of the target farmers reside in rural, hard-to-reach areas with minimal infrastructure, limiting their access to markets, access to solutions that improve yield, and financial resources needed to invest in boosting their farm productivity or scale. Due to the lack of infrastructure and slow historical development in these regions, private-sector solutions are not available, leaving farmers with limited support. Our solution addresses the needs of SHFs, by providing them with access to critical regenerative agricultural inputs, knowledge, and markets, enabling them to improve productivity, secure reliable offtake for their products, leading to improved food security, and increased incomes for SHFs. What makes our business unique is that we serve farmers directly at the farm level, reaching those often overlooked by traditional service providers.