Five Lessons we can all learn from one woman’s journey from waste to resilience in African agriculture
Insights from Joyce Rugano, founder of EcoRich Solutions in Kenya and a member of the Agricultural Innovation for Climate Resilience programme’s cohort.
By Sanjna Sudan
In the heart of Kenya’s farmlands where over five million smallholder farmers contribute to the majority of the nation’s food supply (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, AGRA), one female entrepreneur’s journey in agricultural innovation can serve as a great source of inspiration.
Joyce, founder of EcoRich Solutions, grew up watching her parents struggle to cultivate their land. Fertilizers were expensive, often inaccessible and increasingly harmful to the soil. In 2020, Joyce started EcoRich, a solution to convert organic waste to organic fertilizer. She then developed the WasteBot, an AI-powered device that converts organic household waste into nutrient-rich, affordable fertilizer. What began as a personal response to her mother’s challenges has now become a solution enabling thousands of farmers to restore soil health, improve yields and strengthen their livelihoods.
In 2023, EcoRich was selected to join the Agricultural Innovation for Climate Resilience (AICR) programme. AICR is a partnership between the WFP Innovation Accelerator and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), through its Fund for the Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag), commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The programme sought to support scalable, innovative solutions that help farmers and agricultural stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) build resilience against the impacts of climate change.
Through this programme, Joyce is scaling her innovation to transform farming practices, strengthen food systems and improve lives across Kenya and beyond. EcoRich was also one of our key portfolio innovations invited to showcase their solution at our Pitch Event at COP28 in 2023, in Dubai.
Here are five lessons from her journey every entrepreneur, innovator and changemaker can learn:
1. Start with conviction in your mission and build from there
“It all started with my mother.”
Growing up in a rural farming community in Kenya, Joyce saw her mother work hard on their land, only to be met with meager results. Fertilizer was expensive and hard to find. Even though natural resources were all around them, many farmers didn’t have the tools or knowledge to use them effectively. Joyce often wondered, why should her community buy costly fertilizer when organic waste could be turned into natural manure? “The soil had turned acidic,” she recalls. “My mother’s hard work bore little to no fruit.”
This experience served as a motivation for her. Believing the problem could be solved, Joyce set out to build a solution farmers like her mother could trust. That solution became EcoRich Solutions, a startup focused on making farming more affordable, accessible and sustainable.
2. Design with farmers, not just for them
“To truly understand how best to serve smallholder farmers, you must walk alongside them in their fields.”
Joyce explains that she developed the WasteBot in direct response to the real-world challenges faced by farmers she met during her visits to the field. “They ask questions like: When do I apply? How much should I use? We are always glad to provide clear, practical guidelines,” she shares. Her approach is hands-on and grounded in proximity to the people her startup serves. She and her team regularly spend time at EcoRich’s recycling centres, engaging directly with farmers and continuously refining the product based on their feedback.
This human centred and community-first mindset has helped her build a solution that is both trusted and widely adopted, reaching over 8,000 farmers and counting.
3. Persistence and strong values are essential for building a successful social enterprise
From skepticism to financial constraints, Joyce has faced her share of challenges that many social entrepreneurs face. But through everything, she remained committed to her mission.
“Protect your business fiercely,” she advises fellow entrepreneurs. “Not every opinion will serve your mission.”
Joyce shares that her success hasn’t just come from innovation, but is rooted in a strong foundation of her own values. She also emphasizes that vision alone is not enough; it must be matched with resilience and a clear sense of purpose. Her guiding principles of empathy, creativity, accountability and consistency have helped her navigate uncertainty and stay focused on impact.
“I recall how, in late 2023, the business environment was harsh on us, we were counting losses and our technology wasn’t paying off as expected. Yet, I held on to what I believed in, trusting that things would get better soon. By mid-2024, the tide had turned in our favour, resulting in unexpected growth beyond our imagination.”
With support from the AICR programme, Joyce is significantly scaling EcoRich’s impact; their capability is expanding tenfold, from 50 kg to 500 kg, with plans to integrate solar components to cut production costs. The team is also working to establish eight new recycling hubs in urban areas, aiming to convert 5,000 kg of organic waste per day into nutrient-rich fertilizer.
4. Scale with purpose and keep people, especially women, at the centre
Joyce reiterates that scaling isn’t just about boosting output or efficiency, it’s about people.
“We’ve developed community support programmes that donate food and clothing to families during customer visits,” she shares.
The company is involved in charity initiatives, providing food and clothing to vulnerable community members and supporting local sports by partnering with football clubs to promote youth talent , especially in Kenya’s Kiambu County.
Through this initiative, EcoRich is not only improving soil health but also creating jobs, empowering communities and turning discarded waste into a source of growth and opportunity. This ripple effect has brought lasting positive change to her community.
Furthermore, Joyce strongly believes in working for and with women. So far, EcoRich has created over 200 job opportunities for women and young people through the organic waste-to-fertilizer recycling process.
5. Prioritize building your team in the field, not behind desks
EcoRich Solutions takes pride in a team built in the field, alongside communities, waste collectors and smallholder farmers.
“Every team member was selected not just for their skills, but for their alignment with EcoRich’s mission and their passion for transforming and improving lives in our communities,” shares Joyce.
The team was born out of a deep, hands-on understanding of the problem, beginning with Joyce herself, who learned firsthand how organic waste could be transformed into something of real value. Joyce shares that the core team is strategically divided into functions such as management, operations, marketing, field/community engagement and follows a lean structure. This allows the team to stay responsive, iterate quickly and adapt to challenges in real-time.
Conclusion
Food security for the communities we serve is at the heart of what we do at the WFP Innovation Accelerator. Our role in this ambitious mission is to source and scale impactful ventures that can create lasting change. We recognize that ventures don’t grow on their own, but are built by the people behind them. That’s why we also invest in nurturing communities of innovators, both within WFP and beyond, bringing together changemakers from around the world. These innovators become a part of our WFP Innovation Network and WFP’s SDGx community.
Follow WFP Innovation Accelerator on LinkedIn and Twitter, to learn from and about innovators like Joyce who have launched successful social enterprises in their communities and have been part of our programmes.
The Agricultural Innovation for Climate Resilience Programme (AICR) is a collaboration between the WFP Innovation Accelerator and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) and its Fund for the Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag), commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It is in search of scalable innovative solutions that support farmers and other agriculture stakeholders to build capabilities to mitigate the effects of climate change on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Through a meticulous selection process, ventures and solution providers were chosen to receive comprehensive support including financial backing, technical expertise and methodological guidance from the WFP Innovation Accelerator and its esteemed partners.
