How Earth Wise Storage Plans to Expand Smallholder Poultry Farming in Rwanda

Kudakwashe Chikovo’s Earth Wise Storage combines cold storage and contract poultry farming as it targets 200 smallholder farms in Rwanda by the end of 2027.“Agriculture for me is for everyone,” says the Zimbabwean software engineer turned cold-storage and poultry entrepreneur.

When Kudakwashe Chikovo started raising chickens soon after high school, he encountered challenges that would later shape his business: inadequate production inputs, high chick mortality and uncertain markets for smallholder poultry farmers.

Today, the Zimbabwean entrepreneur runs Earth Wise Storage in Rwanda, a business combining cold-storage services with contract poultry farming. Through this model, the company supports smallholder farmers with production inputs, data and technology, while serving as a market outlet for the birds they produce.

Chikovo says the idea grew from his own experience in poultry farming, where he saw how farmers could remain trapped in low production when they lacked the resources and reliable markets needed to expand.

“Smallholder poultry farmers produce without adequate inputs, so they stay in the same poverty cycle without being able to increase their production,” he said. “They also do not have any guarantee for a stable market and stable prices for the work that they are doing.”

Earth Wise Storage has since established physical outlets in Chimurongo and Kigali, alongside an online store selling products from its operations. The company currently works with more than 15 contract farms, including individual producers and farmers organised in cooperatives.

Earth Wise Storage Turns to Losses for Lessons

Building the contract-farming model has also exposed the business to challenges in poultry production, particularly chick mortality.

During its pilot phase, Chikovo said the company investigated why chicks were dying on some of the farms it worked with. The findings pointed to inadequate housing infrastructure, highlighting the importance of farm conditions in determining production outcomes.

In response, Earth Wise Storage introduced minimum requirements for farmers joining its contract-farming programme, including proper ventilation.

Chikovo said standardising these requirements had produced encouraging results. However, he did not provide figures showing the extent to which mortality had declined.

The experience has helped shape the company’s approach to working with smallholder farmers, with greater attention to the conditions needed for successful production rather than inputs alone.

Under the model, Earth Wise Storage supports farmers with the resources and technical guidance required to raise poultry, then purchases their produce. The arrangement is intended to address two recurring challenges for small-scale producers: access to production support and access to a market.

The extent of the benefits for farmers, however, will also depend on the terms of these arrangements, including production costs, buying prices and the consistency of market access.

From 15 farms to 200

At the Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 in Kigali, Chikovo was looking to connect with larger poultry producers and other value-chain players who could help expand the model.

His target is to grow Earth Wise Storage’s contract-farming network from more than 15 farms to 200 by the end of 2027. Achieving that goal, he said, will require partnerships with players who can provide financing and production inputs.

The forum also offered an opportunity to learn how to present business ideas to financial institutions. Chikovo said the company had begun conversations with institutions working in the agri-tech space, giving it a better understanding of what potential financiers look for in an early-stage business.

Those discussions are an initial step towards securing investment, rather than confirmation that funding has been secured.

As the business grows, Earth Wise Storage has also moved into commercial poultry production. Chikovo said the farm would supplement supplies to the company’s cold-storage hubs and butcheries while the business continues working with smallholder producers.

The expansion introduces another dimension to the company’s model: combining its own production with supply from contract farmers to support a more consistent flow of poultry products through its outlets.

How the two approaches develop alongside each other will be important as the company seeks to expand its network and cold-storage operations.

For Chikovo, agriculture also offers opportunities beyond farming itself. Although trained as a software engineer, he sees his work in poultry and cold storage as evidence that people can enter the sector through different professional backgrounds.

“You can be in the data analytics space of agriculture, you can be in the cold storage, in the production side and the logistics part,” he said. “There is every part everyone can be part of.”

His message to young people is that participation in agriculture does not have to begin with owning a farm. Technology, logistics, storage and other services can also contribute to food production and distribution.

For Earth Wise Storage, the immediate challenge is turning a promising pilot into a larger, sustainable operation, one that can support more farmers while meeting the demands of a growing poultry market.