FEEDING ETHIOPIA'S SOIL BACK TO LIFE
Location:
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Sector:
Agriculture
The Challenge
Ethiopia's fertiliser system is broken. Farmers pay the price.
Ethiopia’s farmers are caught in a trap. The country’s entire fertiliser supply depends on imports — mostly chemical Urea and DAP, controlled by a single state body and subsidised by a government that’s now pulling back. When foreign-currency shortages hit or global supply chains stall, fertilisers simply don’t arrive. And when they do, prices are rising. For smallholder farmers whose planting windows are tied to the rains, a late delivery doesn’t just mean lower yields — it can mean no income at all. Underneath all of this, decades of chemical fertiliser use have degraded the soil itself: 48% of Ethiopia’s arable land now suffers from high acidity, and crop yields are falling at 7.5% annually.
DEPLETED
SOIL
© Thur Biotech
© Thur Biotech
LIVING FERTILISER
The innovation
Living fertiliser, engineered from the soil itself.
Thur Biotech manufactures microbial biofertilisers and biocontrol agents — living bacterial solutions that replace chemical inputs entirely. Applied through seed treatment or foliar spray, Thur Biotech’s products enhance nutrient uptake, fix nitrogen from the soil, protect crops from pests and disease, and rebuild soil health from the ground up. The company produces nine commercially available products, each formulated for specific crops and agro-ecological zones, from cereals and legumes to vegetables and coffee. Where chemical fertilisers offer one-size-fits-all nutrition regardless of soil conditions, Thur Biotech’s solutions are designed around what each field actually needs.
THE STANDOUT
536,000 tonnes of CO₂e avoided. 41,000 farmers reached. Four buying cycles and counting.
Thur Biotech doesn’t just sell a product — it builds adoption. Farmer conversion happens through on-farm demonstration sites run in collaboration with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Agriculture and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, giving the science credibility on the ground. Products are then distributed through a network of 54 agro-dealers and cooperatives across Oromia, Amhara, and SNNPR. The result: repeat purchasing, with farmers averaging four buying cycles over the past two years. Since 2021, Thur Biotech’s biofertilisers have helped avoid an estimated 536,000 tonnes of CO₂e in emissions and regenerated over 52,000 hectares of degraded farmland — while boosting farmer incomes by an average of USD 280 per year.
© Thur Biotech
41,000 FARMERS
Key Facts
Start-up Impact
Economics
- Increased yields boost smallholder farmer incomes
- Higher yields mean more need for farmhands and casual labourers
Environment
- Bio fertilisers have avoided half a million tonnes of CO2
- Regenerate acidic farmland
Food
- Increased yields reduce risk of famines
- Crop diversity leads to better nutrition
People
Meet the Founder
Samson Alemu Fantaye
Founder & CEO
Samson Alemu Fantaye started Thur Biotech with a question that most people in agriculture weren't asking: what if the solution to Ethiopia's fertiliser crisis was already in the soil? Trained in biotechnology and backed by years of R&D, Samson built a company that doesn't import a fix — it engineers one locally, from living microorganisms that farmers can afford and trust. His team has run over 74 demonstrations, trained more than 1,600 farmers, and built a business that has remained profitable from its earliest days. The tagline says it plainly: we feed life with life.
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