While he was at the ideation stage for his business, Hoda Kouakou Steve applied for the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme. Being a part of the programme enlightened him to better understand his idea; structure it and to formalize the company. The seed capital enabled him to launch business activities and conduct various tests on their solutions.

His enterprise, Afririce, enables producers who are frustrated and stressed by the difficulty of threshing-winnowing an easier solution with their thresher-winnower. Originally intended for rice, the machine is now suitable for threshing and winnowing soybeans, which is most suitable as in recent years, Benin has seen a rise in soybean production.

In 2018, the solution was presented at the Innovation Symposium in Rome at FAO headquarters, where Steve and his team were ranked among FAO’s 20 Success Stories in hunger-reduction. The team has been selected by the American Government through the USADF to benefit from the funding of approximately $100,000 to mechanize agricultural operations in 3 large rice and soybean production zones in Benin. The project, planned for 2 years, will also make it possible to digitize the Agricultural Council in the cereal sectors.

From a Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur, straight to global domination!