Devex Dish: Meet the young African farmers putting the sexy back in agriculture

Happy Wednesday, Dish readers. If you’ve ever found yourself scrolling in search of the funnest corner of the internet, perhaps you’ve discovered #AgTok — a hashtag for all things agriculture on TikTok. It’s a virtual home to Africa’s agri-influencers, young farmers from across the continent who are rewriting the future of farming.

Alex Afari is a 35-year-old farmer and cofounder of Defarmercist, a greenhouse consulting firm in Ghana’s Accra region, whose social media feeds highlight everything from drip irrigation for cocoyam plants (“coming up nicely”) to trellising techniques (“farming is fun when you know what to do”).

“My TikTok platform is there to promote sexy agriculture,” Afari tells Devex contributor David Njagi. “Once I take short videos in my farm with beautiful capsicum, beautiful habanero peppers, beautiful tomatoes, a lot of people reach out to me and ask how they can … do something similar.”  

Across the continent in central Uganda, Sandra Nabasirye has used social media to kick-start an agrotourism outfit that organizes educational farm tours in East Africa. She also uses her 1.5-acre farm as a demonstration site for youth and other farmers getting into agriculture. Her social handle? “SlayFarmer.” Tagline? “Sexy from my head to-ma-toes.”

Afari and Nabasirye are among a new crop of young African farmers transforming agriculture on the continent through social media, turning platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn into tools to help farmers improve crop yields, spot and treat plant diseases, find new markets, and boost their incomes. They discuss farming in business terms, advising their followers to consider what the market wants as they decide what to plant. And it seems to be paying off: Afari says his social media presence has earned him consulting gigs from policymakers in his own country, as well as clients in Gambia, Nigeria, and the Maldives. Another young farmer tells David that using social media to promote their products has increased their income by up to 60% per month, or an additional $280 on average, through more visibility and direct customer orders — not to mention speaking engagements and brand collaborations.

Social media is fast becoming a grassroots agricultural extension service. A report by the Mastercard Foundation and Caribou, a consultancy firm, finds that across parts of sub-Saharan Africa, traditional government or agtech-run extension services reach fewer than 1 in 5 farmers. The report reviews social media use among farmers, processors, and traders in Côte d’Ivoire and Benin’s rice, cashew, and soy value chains. It finds that millions of farmers are turning to digital ecosystems on existing social platforms: using WhatsApp for market intelligence, setting up groups by crop and region; Facebook as a storefront via business pages that showcase their products; TikTok as a training platform where users can upload and watch videos on farming techniques; and Instagram for branding, particularly among urban agribusinesses hoping to attract middle-class or international clientele.

“The user — who is the farmer that is targeted by [traditional extension] platforms like advisory services, supply chain management, e-commerce, smart farming, and digital finance — most of the time doesn’t have that money to be able to spend on a platform in order to improve their practices,” says Abbie Phatty-Jobe, manager for research and engagement at Caribou. “There is a massive issue of trust where they have been exposed to so many different kinds of services.”

In editing David’s story, I found myself living vicariously through these young farmers, studying how to use bamboo stalks to support cucumbers’ growth and how TikTok has become a virtual market for hawking fresh produce. As Afari puts it, “I have become a global businessman. This is all because of social media.” Whether it works for everyone remains to be seen, but cutting out the middleman is giving these farmers an edge — and showing that agribusiness holds much opportunity.

Read: Meet the agri-influencers drawing African youth to farming 

See also: Inside the World Bank’s plan to boost jobs by investing in agribusiness 

Related op-ed: Farmers are getting old. Time to unlock our youth’s potential

+ Devex Pro members can get the most out of our coverage on how technology and AI are being implemented in and  driving global development work.

Not yet gone Pro? Experience unlimited access to expert analyses, hidden funding opportunities and career resources with recruiter insights, and connect with key sector players and influencers at exclusive events and briefings when you start your 15-day free trial of Pro today. 

A glimmer of budgetary hope

Here’s another bright spot for your Wednesday: The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have reached a compromise funding bill that would provide $50 billion for U.S. foreign assistance programs in fiscal year 2026 — much more than many aid advocates were expecting. It’s a 16% cut from what the U.S. Congress approved last year, but it’s nearly $20 billion more than President Donald Trump’s own budget request: He’d sought a 47.7% cut to foreign aid.

“This appropriations bill sends a strong signal of broad, bipartisan support within Congress for achieving global food and nutrition security, particularly through investments in agricultural development and research,” says Katie Lee, vice president of government affairs at the Washington-based Farm Journal Foundation. So what’s in the bill? 

• $54 million for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, an increase over the $43 million that the agency actually got in fiscal year 2025.

• $720 million for food security and agricultural development programs. That includes $175 million for international agricultural research, at least $72 million of which will go to Feed the Future innovation labs at U.S. universities. Many universities closed or drastically scaled down their innovation labs last year with USAID’s closure, so we’ll be watching whether this funding can resurrect them. An explanatory statement accompanying the bill calls for the funds for the labs to “establish partnerships focused on livestock innovation capacity, research and development of coffee and cacao crop productivity and their role in associated supply chains, and biosecurity in aquaculture.”

• $100 million for a new public-private partnership foundation on food security to be established through legislation by Dec. 31.

• $9.4 billion for global health, of which $165 million will go toward nutrition. An accompanying House report calls for not less than $300 million for American-made ready-to-use therapeutic foods, or RUTFs, within a broader pool of bilateral assistance known as Title III. The explanatory statement specifies that “50 percent of nutrition funding be devoted to the most cost-effective and evidence-based nutrition interventions, including American-made … RUTF, breastfeeding support, prenatal vitamins, and vitamin A supplementation.” “We welcome Congress asserting its power of the purse to support saving the lives of starving children around the world,” Blake Selzer, director of government affairs at Rhode Island-based RUTF maker Edesia, tells me. 

• $4.4 million for the Global Crop Diversity Trust, aka Crop Trust, which financially supports the world’s seed banks.

And now for some caveats: While appropriators from both the House and Senate have agreed to the bill, it still needs a vote in both chambers before heading to Trump’s desk for approval. Lawmakers are trying to pass it by the time a temporary spending bill expires Jan. 30. And even if the bill becomes law, it’s uncertain whether the Trump administration will carry out Congress’ spending instructions — or whether the State Department has the staffing and resources to implement them.

Separately from this bill, we’re hearing that Food for Peace, the United States’ flagship food aid program, has officially (and temporarily) been moved from the State Department to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which could reorient the program from a focus on food insecurity to more of a focus on trade. Watch this space for more.

Read: US lawmakers strike $50 billion foreign assistance deal, surpassing Trump’s plan

See also: Unexpected global health wins in the US foreign aid bill

ICYMI: What we’re watching across food systems in 2026 (Pro)

See you in Berlin

Food and agriculture experts are gathering this week in icy Berlin, Germany, for the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture, or GFFA. It comes as Germany becomes an increasingly important aid donor, especially as the U.S. pulls back. “It’s on the ascendancy,” Lawrence Haddad, the executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, tells my colleague, Jesse Chase-Lubitz, who will be at the forum. “I want to hear and learn about what direction they’re going in.”

This year’s theme is on water security and governance — which experts say could set up discussions for the United Nations Water Conference later this year. “This conference ideally would create at least some baseline on how the agriculture sector can contribute to sustainably managing water,” Karly Kelso, director of climate-resilient food systems at the Environmental Defense Fund, tells Jesse.

While most of the gathering’s value is collaborative talks, GFFA also produces a declaration, which will be finalized in closed talks on Saturday. A draft communiqué agreed to by 62 governments highlights the need to situate farming in the green industrial transitions — as a supplier for energy, materials, chemicals, and climate solutions, rather than solely for food.

While the declaration doesn’t have any “teeth,” Kelso says, it does lay out the sector’s aspirations and could provide guidelines on how governments will move forward this year.

Are you in Berlin? Get in touch with Jesse via jesse.chaselubitz@devex.com.  

Frozen over

The United States has frozen all assistance to Somalia after accusing Somali officials of destroying a U.S.-funded World Food Programme warehouse and illegally seizing 76 metric tons of food aid, my colleague Ayenat Mersie reports. In a statement last week, the U.S. State Department said it was “deeply concerned” and asserted the Trump administration has a “zero-tolerance policy for waste, theft, and diversion of life-saving assistance.” The U.S. has historically been Somalia’s largest humanitarian donor. The aid freeze comes as Somalia faces a worsening food crisis, with nearly 4.4 million people projected to face acute food insecurity amid a fast-escalating drought.

While Somali authorities confirmed they demolished the warehouse as part of major expansion works at the Mogadishu port, both the government and WFP denied that the food aid was destroyed or looted. The U.S., meanwhile, has said any resumption of aid depends on the “Somali Federal Government taking accountability for its unacceptable actions and taking appropriate remedial steps.” The standoff occurs amid heightened U.S.-Somalia tension, exacerbated by Trump’s derogatory remarks about Somalis and renewed calls by some U.S. conservatives to recognize the self-declared independent region of Somaliland — which the Somali government strongly opposes.

Read: US freezes aid to Somalia over dispute on destroyed WFP warehouse

Chew on this

Exclusive: Inside the U.S.-U.N. plan to remake funding for humanitarian crises. [Devex]

Is grass-fed beef really better for the climate? Probably not, experts say. [The New York Times

India’s domination of the global rice trade is stoking a looming water crisis. [Reuters]