Nigeria’s largest maize aggregator Babban Gona has collaborated with the Mastercard Foundation to create job opportunities for 560,000 youths and women in Nigeria by 2022.
Employment is a way out of poverty, the collaboration aims at empowering individuals in the agricultural value chain and support the growth of agribusiness making use of technology to provide education and training, harvesting and marketing support, and access to cost-effective financing services to smallholder farmers.
The products and services provided will motivate smallholders to get over the challenges of low economies of scale and supply-side fragmentation.
BabbanGona offers support by franchising thousands of grassroots-level farmer cooperatives called TrustGroups.
The country head, Mastercard foundation, Chidinma Lawanson said “Agriculture is one of the major viable potential employment sources for young individuals in Africa. We are glad to be part of the process of empowering Nigerian Youths, specifically women and the general effect within the rural community.”
She said further that “Our collaboration with Babban Gona will be an influencer for entrepreneurial reorientation, sustainable livelihoods, and job creation for smallholder farmers.”
The collaboration between both organizations successfully generated 82, 000 jobs in 2020 alone. 70 percent of the jobs were for the youths and women takes 33 percent of them.
BabbanGona made use of Mastercard Foundation support last year to enhance to new record levels; cultivating 80,000+ acres due to the recent diversification to rice farming; over 18,500 female entrepreneurs; over 38,000 smallholder farmer members across six states of operation.
“The organization’s goal is simple, to be the earth’s highest impact business. We will accomplish this by simultaneously and dramatically scaling the number of individuals impacted, while also ensuring a depth of impact on each individual to truly transform their lives and the lives of their family,” said Kola Masha, managing director, Babban Gona
“We are fortunate to have Mastercard Foundation’s unwavering support on this journey; working together we can coordinate actions and make much-needed investments in agriculture to ensure resilience among smallholders in the post-COVID-19 era,” Masha said.
Babban Gona managing director Kola Masha stated that “The goal of the organization is to be the highest impact business in the world. We aim to achieve this by dramatically and simultaneously enhancing the number of impacted individuals, and ensuring the depth of impact on every individual to truly transform their lives and their family”
Masha stated that “We are fortunate to have Mastercard foundation’s full support on this journey; collaborating we can coordinate actions and make a lot of required investments in agriculture to ensure the resilience among smallholders in the post-COVID-19 era.”
