An Ethiopian app that brings the farm to the farmer just won Africa's top sustainable-business honour

For a smallholder farmer in rural Ethiopia, the hardest problems are rarely the farming itself — they are getting credit, finding a tractor, buying good inputs and reaching a buyer. Lersha, built by Ethiopia's Green Agro Solution, bundles all of that into one platform mixing a phone app with local agents on the ground. This week it won both the Judges' Award for Excellence — the overall prize — and the Agribusiness Award at the 2026 Africa Sustainable Futures Awards, run by the Financial Times and the World Bank Group's MIGA, chosen from nearly 600 entries across the continent. Founded in 2018, Lersha now works across Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

SDG 2 · Zero hunger — Mechanism: tech innovation