Every year, African agriculture produces enormous quantities of agricultural waste, from nut shells and maize cobs to husks and stalks. Much of it has little commercial value and is often discarded or left to decompose.
Nigerian entrepreneur Ikenna Nzewi sees something different: a business opportunity.
Nzewi is the co-founder and CEO of Biochar Industrial Group (BIG), a climate technology company developing an industrial model that converts agricultural waste into biochar and carbon-removal credits. The company has now raised US$1.5 million in pre-seed funding to expand its operations across Sub-Saharan Africa.
The round was led by BREEGA, with participation from The Catalyst Fund, while the Mulago Foundation provided additional non-dilutive funding. BIG plans to use the capital to deepen partnerships with food-processing companies and deploy more of its Biochar-as-a-Service model.
The business model starts inside food-processing factories.
Instead of allowing agricultural waste to become a disposal problem, BIG installs and operates specialised pyrolysis equipment at processing facilities. The machinery heats biomass at temperatures above 600°C in an oxygen-deprived environment, converting the waste into a stable form of carbon known as biochar.
That creates two potential products from what was previously treated as waste.
The first is biochar, which can be returned to agricultural supply chains and used as a soil amendment. The second is carbon-removal credits generated from the carbon stored in the biochar, which can be independently measured and audited for sale in carbon markets.
For food processors, the model could turn an operational cost into another source of value.
BIG partners directly with processors, placing its equipment close to where agricultural waste is generated. This reduces the need to transport large quantities of low-value biomass while allowing the resulting biochar to move back into agricultural supply chains.
The company also says the model can create technical jobs in rural communities where the processing facilities operate.
The opportunity is substantial. BIG estimates that Africa produces about one billion tonnes of non-edible agricultural biomass each year, including materials such as nut shells, cobs, husks and stalks. The company is building its business around the idea that some of this waste can become an industrial resource rather than a liability.
The model also connects waste management with another challenge facing African agriculture: declining soil quality.
When applied to farmland, biochar can help improve soil conditions. BIG reports that controlled field trials using its biochar recorded yield increases of up to 50 percent, although those results come from the company’s own trials and may vary by crop, soil and application conditions.
For Nzewi and his co-founders, the business is an extension of experience they have already gained in African agriculture.
BIG was founded by Nzewi, Chief Technology Officer Uzoma Ayogu and Chief Operating Officer Isaiah Udotong. Before launching the company, the three spent nearly a decade building industrial agricultural infrastructure at Releaf Earth, a Y Combinator-backed Nigerian agro-processing company. They developed industrial machinery, operated four factories and built supply chains involving thousands of smallholder farmers.
That background gives the founders experience on both sides of the problem: agricultural processing and industrial technology.
BIG is now applying that experience to a market that is still relatively young in Africa, durable carbon removal.
The company’s approach is different from carbon-removal businesses that operate large standalone facilities. By placing its pyrolysis systems directly within or alongside food-processing operations, BIG is attempting to build carbon removal into existing agricultural businesses rather than creating an entirely separate supply chain.
That could also make the model easier to replicate across different agricultural markets. The company says its systems can be adapted to local feedstocks and operating conditions, allowing different processors to use the waste materials most readily available in their regions.
The new funding gives BIG the capital to move from its existing operations into a larger deployment phase.
For Nzewi, the opportunity is ultimately about changing how African businesses think about waste.
What was once something a food processor had to pay to dispose of could become an input for another product, a source of carbon-removal revenue and a potential agricultural resource.
That is the business proposition behind Biochar Industrial Group: take something African industries already produce in enormous quantities, add technology and industrial infrastructure, and create a new value chain around it.
If BIG can scale that model across the continent, agricultural waste could become more than a by-product of Africa’s food economy. It could become part of a new business opportunity sitting at the intersection of agriculture, manufacturing and the global carbon market.
