Jerry Oche

Oche began his career in media and marketing in Jos before spending five years in corporate roles across advertising, marketing, and consulting.^[3]

In 2011, he founded Street Toolz, a Nigerian digital marketing and communication agency.^[5] While Oche serving as CEO, the agency delivered campaigns for development organizations, including the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) on the Lighting Global initiative, which supported off-grid solar market development in Nigeria in 2017.^[6]

In 2015, Oche founded Zowasel, a Nigerian agricultural technology company focused on building sustainable value chains and supporting smallholder farmers through regenerative agriculture.^[7][8][9] The company provided digital traceability, climate-smart agricultural tools, and financial inclusion solutions to promote sustainable farming.^[10] He left Street Toolz in 2017 to fully lead Zowasel’s growth.^[5] Under his leadership, Zowasel partnered with development agencies and agribusinesses to improve transparency in commodity supply chains and increase farmers’ incomes.^[11] In 2018, Zowasel was awarded in the Financial Inclusion Challenge in Visa’s Everywhere Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa program, for its digital platform connecting smallholder farmers with buyers and investors.^[12]

In 2017, Oche launched Growsel, a nonprofit agritech organization that connects underserved farmers in rural area with lenders and impact investors to finance agricultural production.^[13]

Oche’s motivation for working in agriculture stems from his upbringing in north-eastern Nigeria, where his mother was a smallholder farmer.^[14] Oche’s work in agritech focused on improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers through regenerative agriculture, digital inclusion, and financial empowerment. In July 2021, his company Zowasel secured an investment from Guinness Nigeria and Promasidor Nigeria Limited through the WFP’s “Zero Hunger Sprint”.^[9]

By 2021, Zowasel reported working with more than 1.5 million smallholder farmers in northern Nigeria. The company operates a digital platform that connects farmers with buyers and provides services such as agronomy training, input distribution, mechanisation access, traceability tools and credit-scoring support.^[15]

In partnership with the JICA, and other institutions, in 2023 Zowasel developed the Alternative Credit Evaluation Scoring System (ACESS) to digitise farmer data and assess creditworthiness for lending institutions.^[16]

Zowasel also partnered with IDH -The Sustainable Trade Initiative to implement a regenerative agriculture programme focused on transforming Nigeria’s sorghum value chain.^[17]

Through Growsel, Oche supported smallholder farmers in Nigeria with farm machinery and farm kiosks, including mini-tractors, harvesters, and planters deployed in Nasarawa State.^[18]