Across Africa, women grow an estimated 70% of the food supply, yet they receive only a tiny fraction of investment in agricultural technology. In South Africa, where just 18.7% of jobs are in agriculture, enterprising women are stepping up to close that gap. They’re applying tech, data, and creative business models to overcome long-standing challenges (from erratic weather to fragmented supply chains). In this Startup Spotlight, we profile several South African ventures led by women who are transforming how food is grown, processed, and delivered. These founders are rewriting the rulebook: building new “tables” in a field long dominated by men, and in the process showing that investing in women-powered solutions can boost yields, sustainability, and profits.
Field Tech Environmental Solutions (Johannesburg) – Precision Drones for Smart Farming
In the skies above South African farms, drones are becoming the new tractor – and one of the pilots is Nokuphila Gumede. As founder and CEO of Field Tech Environmental Solutions, Nokuphila has built a precision-agriculture startup that uses advanced drones and AI to spray pesticides, apply fertilizer, and map fields. Launched in 2021, Field Tech “integrates advanced drone technology with precision agriculture”. Nokuphila explains that flying drones over farmland lets her small-team startup work faster and greener: aerial sensors spot pest outbreaks and moisture stress early, so farmers can intervene only where needed. This cuts chemical use and labour, and boosts yields. Field Tech is already helping sugarcane and vegetable growers optimize their inputs. Under Nokuphila’s leadership, the company provides “cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable solutions” to farmers.
Field Tech’s model echoes that of leading South African agritech firms like Aerobotics. By contrast, Nokuphila’s venture is women-led and focused on local needs – for example, providing drones on-demand to co-ops and smallholders who otherwise couldn’t afford high-tech kits. Her story shows how a woman engineer can fuse grassroots farming knowledge with cutting-edge tools, making high-tech farming accessible across South Africa.
eFama (Durban/Global) – Digital Marketplace for Farmers
Technology isn’t just machines; it’s also new ways of connecting people. Pretty Kubyane, a young South African tech entrepreneur, co-founded eFama in 2023 to tackle exactly that. eFama is a mobile marketplace app that links smallholder farmers and producers directly with big buyers (wholesalers, retailers and food processors). Before eFama, farmers in KwaZulu-Natal might struggle to sell produce beyond their local market; now they can upload what they have (from eggs to veggies) and get instant orders. Pretty describes eFama as “transforming Africa’s agricultural supply chain” by eliminating middlemen.
Under Pretty’s leadership as co-founder and tech lead, eFama has rapidly signed up thousands of farmers and buyers. The startup has secured partnerships with banks and tech firms in South Africa, the UK and USA to finance and grow its platform. For example, eFama worked with a South African bank to guarantee input loans for farmers who pre-sell their harvest on the app.
Fynbos Fine Foods (Cape Town) – Turning Local Harvests into Products
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Innovation isn’t only about software. Sometimes it’s a new use for an old crop. Rozelle Abramson founded Fynbos Fine Foods back in 1996, and her business has grown into a food-processing powerhouse. Originally, Rozelle was a schoolteacher who started farming colored peppers. Rather than let imperfect or excess peppers go to waste, she turned them into gourmet jams and sauces. Her first product was a “Chilli Ginger Jam” made from peppers that otherwise “would have gone to the compost”.
Over the years, Rozelle has expanded Fynbos Fine Foods into a full line of bottled condiments – all natural, vegan-friendly spreads made from South African produce. Today the company employs over 130 people across Cape Town and farming areas. This isn’t just chutney-making; Rozelle has created a whole value chain. She sources fruits and vegetables from local growers (often women-led farms), processes them in her factory, and sells under brands stocked by retailers nationwide.
Yebo Fresh (Cape Town) – Tech-Driven Food Supply for Townships
Food systems include not just farms but also grocery stores, and Jessica Boonstra is innovating at that end of the chain. Her startup Yebo Fresh built a technology-driven distribution platform for South Africa’s township corner shops (“spazas”). Jessica realized that owners of small town shops lack convenient access to affordable wholesale food. So she digitized the supply chain: now a shopkeeper can use a WhatsApp or app-based catalog to order fresh produce (vegetables, dairy, staples) from Yebo, and a Yebo truck delivers the goods within 24 hours.
By centralizing procurement, Yebo Fresh lets township retailers stock fresh food at lower cost. Jessica explains that many spaza shops were stuck paying high middle-man mark-ups for vegetables, which drove up prices for consumers. Yebo Fresh cuts out these intermediaries. For example, one community retailer shared that after signing up, her weekly order costs dropped over 20%. Lionesses of Africa notes that Jessica’s platform “allows township retailers to place an order and get free delivery of goods within 24 hours”afridigest.com, directly improving food access. In effect, Yebo Fresh is an agrifoodtech startup: it uses a digital “e-commerce” model to keep urban food markets supplied. Jessica – a white South African entrepreneur – is passionate about community impact. She’s proud that Yebo Fresh “fundamentally chang[es] the way essential goods are provided to the township market”afridigest.com. Her work illustrates how women in agritech can reshape entire food systems, not just farms: by connecting consumers with affordable products, she’s helping feed tens of thousands of families.
Other Women Innovating in South African Agriculture
These spotlighted ventures are just a sampling. Women across South Africa are launching creative agtech and agri-business projects: from organizations training women farmers in regenerative methods, to startups offering financing or soil-testing services. For instance, Thola Inc., co-founded by Lesotho-born tech entrepreneur Nneile Nkholise, is building a continent-wide B2B marketplace for African produce. Though not limited to South Africa, platforms like hers could one day allow South African farmers to export crops directly to global buyers. Closer to home, other female-led companies – such as a women-run agri-finance fund or a drone mapping cooperative – are quietly taking root, waiting for capital and policy support to scale up.
In the end, the proof is in the harvest. When data-driven drones rescue a drought-threatened crop, or a digital app brings a million kilos of tomatoes to market, the impact is tangible. The women profiled here – Nokuphila, Pretty, Rozelle, Jessica, and many others – are reshaping agriculture from the ground up. They’re showing that cutting-edge farming isn’t just a man’s world. As one of our experts put it, the next generation of African agriculture is being built by women, and everyone stands to gain.
