Japanese agriculture fintech Degas Limited has announced a US$100 million investment over the next four years to help establish Ghana as Africa’s first AI-powered agricultural hub, expanding a model that, it says, has already financed more than 86,000 smallholder farmers across 122,000 acres nationwide.
Doga Makiura, CEO and founder of Degas Limited, said, at a meeting with President John Dramani Mahama on the sidelines of the recent Ghana Presidential Investment Forum: “Our $100 million commitment will scale AI-driven satellite monitoring and precision agriculture techniques so farmers can boost yields, reduce risk, and access fairly priced finance.”
He added: “We’ve already seen incomes double with a 95% repayment rate from the farmers.”
Degas’ platform combines AI-driven satellite monitoring and agriculture techniques. The results, according to Makiura, are drawing strong interest from Japanese investors who consider Ghana’s integrated approach the ‘gold standard’ for agricultural investment in Africa. He also suggested that President Mahama’s focus on value-chain integration aligns closely with Japan’s search for credible, scalable partnerships.
Mahama explained: “This investment reinforces our commitment to integrated agricultural value chains that connect farmers to markets, finance, storage, and processing. By leveraging AI and precision technologies, we will improve productivity, enhance food security, and create dignified jobs for youth across rural communities.”
The new funding will support the expansion of Degas’ farmer financing, satellite-enabled crop monitoring, and precision agronomy services, while deepening partnerships across input supply, logistics and offtake to strengthen local value chains.
Founded in 2019, Degas says it is dedicated to raising the productivity and income of 600 million smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa by leveraging its proprietary technology platform.
It provides farmers with high-quality farming inputs and offers specialised training, equipping farmers with tools and knowledge to maximise productivity. Farmers make repayments by delivering a portion of their agricultural outputs and realise additional incomes through the sales of remaining crops.
To date, Degas says it has collected millions of data points across the full value chain by using its proprietary mobile app. It use the data and machine learning techniques to compute farmer credit scores and make data-driven decisions to optimise operations.
Its field staff use its proprietary app to enrol farmers, distribute inputs, record farm locations, monitor farming activities, and harvest and recover crops. Each bag collected from farmers filled with crops has a QR code containing all the relevant information, enabling Degas to offer end-to-end traceability across the value chain.
