The Agricultural Financing Paradox: A Relationship Gap, Not a Capital Shortfall

By Sheena Raikundalia

If we eat every day, why does agriculture remain one of the hardest sectors to finance? That was the question posed at the start of the Financing Agri-food Systems Sustainability 2026 summit (FINAS2026) – not after three keynote speeches, not after another expert panel, but at the very outset. It is a question the industry has avoided for far too long.

Too often, conversations about agricultural finance amount to people talking about each other rather than as each other. Bankers describe farmers as too risky. Farmers describe bankers as out of touch. Policymakers describe both as difficult to reach. Everyone diagnoses the system from the outside, and the diagnosis rarely changes.

FINAS2026 tried something different. There was no stage, no panel, no designated experts, and no passive audience. Instead, organizers seated bankers, farmers, agripreneurs, policymakers, solution providers, development finance institutions, and development partners around the same tables and asked a simple question: What keeps you up at night, and what do you actually need?

But there was a catch. Before anyone was allowed to propose a solution, they first had to become someone else.

Empathy as an Engineering Tool

Using design-thinking techniques such as empathy mapping, participants were required to step into roles that were not their own. The banker had to think like a farmer. The farmer had to think like a banker. The policymaker had to think like a small or midsize enterprise. The solution provider had to think like the very person expected to adopt their technology.

No one in the room suddenly stumbled onto a groundbreaking innovation. What shifted was something subtler and, arguably, more valuable: the mood in the room. Once participants were forced to inhabit each other’s constraints, they began asking different questions – questions rooted in empathy rather than assumption.

That shift produced the summit’s most striking discovery. In three of the six discussion groups, someone realized that one of their biggest challenges already had a solution sitting at the same table.

The Problem Was Never the Problem

Consider one example. A technology provider had spent months searching for farmer groups willing to pilot its solution. Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, a farmer organization had thousands of members ready and eager to test new innovations – yet no visibility into the technology that could have served them.

Neither party had a funding problem. Neither had a technology problem. What they had was a connection problem.

This pattern is worth sitting with, because it is not unique to one summit. Across agriculture, the instinctive response to fragmentation is to create something new: another program, another pilot, another institution. Rarely does the response involve simply introducing the people who are already trying to solve each other’s problems.

Rethinking the Constraint

Perhaps agriculture’s most stubborn constraint isn’t access to capital at all. Perhaps it is fragmented relationships, misaligned incentives, and conversations that unfold in silos – each stakeholder solving half a puzzle without realizing the other half is one table away.

Systemic change doesn’t have to start with a technological breakthrough. It can start with something far more modest: putting the right people in the same room and giving them permission to understand one another before rushing to fix one another.

The implications extend well beyond agri-food finance. Any sector plagued by chronic underinvestment – climate adaptation, affordable housing, public health infrastructure – might ask itself the same uncomfortable question that FINAS2026 posed. Is the barrier really a shortage of money? Or is it a shortage of understanding between the people who have the capital, the people who have the solutions, and the people who have the need?

If agriculture’s biggest financing gap is, in fact, a relationship gap, then the most powerful investment the sector could make might not be another fund, another pilot, or another platform. It might simply be a bigger table.

Sheena Raikundalia is an accomplished entrepreneur, former lawyer, government policy advisor, and angel investor with deep expertise across the legal, financial services, and impact investment sectors in Europe and Africa. She has played a pivotal role in advancing Africa’s technology and innovation ecosystems, leveraging a career that spans top-tier London law firms, leadership as Country Director of the UK-Kenya Tech Hub for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and her current position as Chief Growth Officer at agri-tech company Kuza One. Sheena is recognized for her strategic vision, commitment to fostering innovation, and strong advocacy for Africa’s growth potential in technology, entrepreneurship, and impact investment.