Commodity Association Applies New Knowledge to Increase Farm Yields and Unlock Access to Finance

Maize is an important staple food in Nigeria with the country producing over 33 million tons in 2018, making it  the largest producer of maize in Africa[1]. Not only is maize the most consumed staple food in Nigeria, but a recent study also reported that 50 – 70% of the country’s maize is used to manufacture poultry feed, another key product for farmers[2]. Therefore, to properly support this industry, it is no surprise that the successful cultivation of maize, like any other crop, depends on the correct application of inputs and best practices to enhance efficiency and boost productivity for farmers.

Conscious of how insufficient practices have impeded their productivity in previous years, the Ebonyi State chapter of the Maize Growers and Processors Association of Nigeria (MAGPAMAN) partnered with the USAID-funded Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity to arm themselves with new knowledge and apply improved maize cultivation practices in seed distribution, fertilizer application and soil tillage. Supporting their commitment to commercialize maize production and meet growing demand, the USAID Activity implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture facilitated trainings on good agronomic practices for 350 MAGPAMAN lead farmers in the state. The lead farmers then went on to cascade the training to 910 additional farmers.

Members of MAGPAMMAN meet with CNFA and USAID during a visit to Ebonyi State.

According to MAGPAMAN’s State Chairman, Chief Ebere Orji, the training provided by the Activity in July 2020 helped farmers learn maize production best practices, which unlocked Eco Bank input loans for the 2020 wet season worth $415,000 (171.4 million Naira) through the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers Program. He added that the farmers also successfully applied these practices during the 2021 planting season, earning input loans worth $367 (157,461 Naira) for each of the 1,260 trained farmers.

“We were able to put our knowledge from the Activity’s good agricultural practices training into good use. In 2021, I harvested about 210 bags (21 tons) of maize on my 300ha farm because I applied the information I learned from their training”, Chief Orji said. He added that as a result of their increased yields, his members could also repay their loans to Eco Bank.

Today, farmers can boast of their improved yields and access new funding opportunities that expand their farm productivity, improve their incomes and sustain their livelihoods. Additionally, the Activity’s continued support to MAGPAMAN will help the commodity association position themselves well enough to take advantage of the opportunity to produce maize on a commercial scale. The Activity will keep supporting the commodity association to strengthen their knowledge on enterprise fundamentals and enhance their leadership skills, enabling them to stand out as commercial maize producers in Ebonyi State.

[1] https://www.iita.org/cropsnew/maize/#1620923190234-4da3b54a-b683

[2] https://babbangona.com/maize-farming-in-nigeria-exciting-facts-you-should-know/

Nigeria’s annual fish production currently stands at 0.8 million metric tons per year, which is 2.7 million tons short of the local demand. To help increase domestic production and meet local demand for one of the country’s most consumed proteins, fish production firms like Musgola Farms Ltd need all the support they can get to improve their output, quality and capacity.

Since 2021, the USAID-funded Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity has provided technical support to Musgola Farms Ltd, a fish production firm based in Minna, Niger State, by helping them structure a business plan proposal to access $56,470 (24 million Naira) in finance through Sterling Bank’s Women and Youth in Agriculture Finance (SWAY-AGFin) product.

The firm received the payment in two disbursements of $28,235 (12 million Naira), each over a six-month moratorium period and with a standing agreement to keep receiving funds on a rolling basis. They received the first disbursement in October 2021, which they quickly paid back, and received another $28,235 (12 million Naira) in June 2022. With the funds from the first disbursement, the company turned over a profit of $9,827 (5 million Naira).

“We completed the first production cycle with the $28,235 (12 million Naira) we received, and we sold about $38,062 (17 million Naira) worth of fish,” said Umar Musa, CEO of Musgola Farms Ltd. He added that the firm will continue to access $28,235 (12 million Naira) or more on a rolling basis as they adhere to the repayment window per cycle over the next two years.

Musgola Farms Ltd representatives during a field monitoring visit to Minna, Niger State.

Highlighting how the funding helped his business increase its production capacity and produce more fish, Musa, who is also the founder and head of a fish cluster in Minna, said, “The money we received from Sterling Bank helped us to increase our fingerling stocking capacity from 100,000 per annum to 130,000.” He noted that the firm was also able to increase their fish feed production to provide feed,  not just for his farm, but for the rest of his 300-member fish cluster which owns over 2,500 ponds, each with a stocking capacity of at least 5,000 fingerlings.

Musa expressed confidence that the firm will sustain their relationship with the bank in order to access more funding but noted that the firm needs more working capital to meet the growing demand for fish products, especially in nearby Abuja where demand for catfish products is high.

“Our cluster controls the fish market in Minna, but we want to acquire a market share in Abuja where we know demand is very high,” he said.

With an annual product shortage of 1.9 million metric tons of fish, much support is still needed to optimize production to cover this gap. The Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity will continue to support micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the aquaculture value chain to enhance their performance and strengthen access to finance, enabling them to expand their businesses and optimize their growth.

Adiaratou Sangaré is a small ruminant trader from Yanfolila, Mali, who has been perfecting her practice for over 13 years. At age 37, the mother of six is also a member of the Association of Small Ruminants Traders of Yanfolila, a partner of the Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa Activity, which works to strengthen market systems, sustainably improve household incomes, and improve the nutritional status of women and children in the Sikasso sub-zone.

Over the years, Sangaré has established a climate of trust with local breeders who have agreed to sell her their animals and provide payment after the animals’ sale. Additionally, with Sangaré’s experience and through the investment of a close relative who grants her interest-free loans, she leads her business and ensures that she can afford healthcare, school and clothing fees for her children without having to turn to financial institutions for support.

To facilitate market opportunities for farmers and entrepreneurs like Sangaré working across the Southern Zone of Mali, Sugu Yiriwa organized seven small ruminant fairs in line with the Tabaski holiday from June 25 – July 8, 2022. The fairs aimed at enhancing participants’ access to critical business linkages and breaking the cycle of middlemen who dominate the small ruminant market.

Adiaratou Sangaré awarded best buyer prize at Koumantou fair.

Sangaré attended the Sugu Yiriwa fair in Niena on June 25 before participating in the Koumantou fair, where she was awarded Sugu Yiriwa’s best buyer prize for purchasing 558 heads of sheep and goat worth $57,365 (36,756,500 FCFA). As the Tabaski holiday approached and the demand for sheep and goats grew higher, Sangaré benefitted from increased prices at the fair in her hometown of Yanfolila and sold 478 animals for $93,446 (59,875,792 FCFA). Here, she was again awarded a prize from Sugu Yiriwa, this time as the best seller in Yanfolila.

Sangaré serves as a role model for her community and is currently providing hands-on training in price negotiation and animal quality assessment to three women who shadowed her at the fairs. Sangaré has also created 10 permanent jobs for eight small re-sellers and two laborers, as well as temporary labor jobs during periods of intense activity. Additionally, at the community level, she provides sheep on credit for community events.

Reflecting on the fairs, Sangaré said, “Thanks to Sugu Yiriwa, I found all my needs for quality animals without having to travel far away, which led me to reduce my costs and maximize profits. I am also proud of myself for having received the biggest buyer prize in Koumantou. This grand gesture motivates me to participate in Sugu Yiriwa’s events in the upcoming year.”

Timothy Coulibaly is a maize, millet, and peanut producer in Farakala, Mali. In 2021, when Feed the Future Mali Sugu Yiriwa began to collaborate with his village, Coulibaly was selected to work as a community focal point, helping Sugu Yiriwa provide technical support to local farmers, producers, and entrepreneurs.

So far, Sugu Yiriwa has trained over 200 development leaders like Coulibaly to assist their communities in exchanging agricultural best practices in the Sikasso region. Through their training, these community champions elevate local voices, share knowledge with agricultural stakeholders, ensure that context-specific needs are addressed, and help develop locally-driven solutions.

In June 2022, Sugu Yiriwa hosted a training in Sikasso on conservation, cereal storage, and good sanitation practices for producing and handling dry cereals like millet, sorghum, rice, maize, cowpea, and by-products. The training highlighted the serious consequences that post-harvest losses can have across the grain supply chain, such as increased market prices, fewer livelihood opportunities, and negative health impacts. During this training, Coulibaly was introduced to multifunctional threshing machines and was able to see the equipment in action.

Given the poor capacity of threshing machines in Farakala and surrounding villages, Coulibaly realized that buying an axial thresher would be a great business opportunity that would fill a gap in his area by increasing productivity, revenue, and community resilience.

Reflecting on the machine’s potential, Coulibaly said: “In the past, 30 percent of our harvest was lost due to the lack of machines that could thresh the crops in a timely and efficient way. During the harvest season, producers were obliged to wait their turn for threshing and the results were not ideal. This exposed produce to animals and rain. If the produce was not stored well before threshing, farmers were at the mercy of mold and parasites that, in addition to being vectors of disease, have a negative impact on health and agricultural yields.”

At the end of the training, Coulibaly reached out to Sugu Yiriwa to help him buy a threshing machine for his community. “Sugu Yiriwa put us in touch with SOCAFON, a company based in Niono that manufactures agricultural equipment. Sugu Yiriwa field agents accompanied me throughout the process and helped me get a price reduction. Sugu Yiriwa also helped facilitate access to a loan of 2.5 million FCFA ($3,700), which covered both the purchase price and on-site training with the manufacturer’s technicians.”

Cereal crops are central to agriculture in the Farakala area and the new thresher provides great value-added for farmers, with a capacity of up to two tons of grain per hour. “In a single working day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., we can now thresh ten tons of grain, or 100 bags of 100 kg each,” Coulibaly said. “We provide threshing services for rice, maize, and sorghum farmers, and we have not stopped working since the arrival of the machine. Our work will continue until January, which is the end of the harvest season. I am currently working with my younger brother who is passionate and helps a lot.”

Operating the threshing machine costs between 7,500 FCFA ($11) and 10,000 FCFA ($15) per ton of maize, and between 12,500 FCFA ($19) and 15,000 FCFA ($22) per ton of rice. It operates at higher capacity and lower cost than the only other, old threshing machine in the area. Demand for Coulibaly’s threshing services is unrelenting. With the extra income he is now earning, he plans to repay his loan and buy another machine of the same type.

Sugu Yiriwa not only facilitates the acquisition of agricultural equipment, but also supports producers by offering training and advice to better manage their business and increase their profits. So far this year, two new threshing machines are up and running in Sikasso region thanks to Sugu Yiriwa and there are more to come.

Climate change has drastically reduced crop yields, lowered the nutritional quality of major cereals, and decreased livestock productivity in Sikasso. To cope with these impacts, Sugu Yiriwa promotes climate change adaptation initiatives designed to positively impact agricultural productivity in the grain sector, improve food security, and increase incomes and community resilience. This includes assisting local stakeholders, like Coulibaly, with the tools they need for more efficient harvesting and better storage, resulting in reduced effort and fewer products going to waste.

Access to finance is a major obstacle for rural producers who wish to invest in and strengthen their agribusinesses. Often, financial institutions consider agricultural sector financing to be highly risky and, as a result, offer few financial products to support smallholder producers.

To improve access to financing for cowpea, small ruminant and poultry value chain actors in the Centre-Nord, Est and Sahel regions of Burkina Faso, the Feed the Future-funded USAID Yidgiri Activity signed a partnership protocol with the Network of Popular Credit Unions of Burkina (RCPB) in November 2020. The partnership with RCPB, which is present in each of the Activity’s target regions and has many offices throughout the country, aims to build stronger relationships with producer organizations and ensure that farmers have improved access to credit.

In addition to strengthening access to finance, USAID Yidgiri collaborated with the USAID CATALYZE project’s financial facilitators to build the capacity of producers to apply for and receive funding. Together, they helped producer organizations develop and submit over 90 support plans, enabling them to negotiate their financing with the credit union network. To date, 14 cooperatives have received loans worth around $34,000 (approximately 18.75 million FCFA) to support their activities and grow their businesses.

The President of the Communal Union of Small Ruminant Producers of Boulsa, Sibdou Kabore, directing the animals to the sheepfold.

The communal union of small ruminant producers of Boulsa, chaired by Sibdou Kabore, was among those that received a credit loan. The union’s 12 women producers received around $7,500 (approximately 4.9 million FCFA) to conduct small ruminant fattening activities, which enabled them to acquire 96 sheep and feed for their livestock. With their first wave of fattened animals, they sold 34 sheep to local traders and delicatessens for a total of around $4,000 (approximately 2.6 million FCFA). With their second wave of fattened animals, they were able to sell 50 fattened sheep during the Tabaski celebration for a total of around $8,000 (approximately 5.3 million FCFA). Through these sales, the women will repay their loan on time and already plan to sell a third wave of fattened sheep  during other national holidays and end of year celebrations.

Sibdou Kaboré, one of the union’s producers, described her appreciation for the Activity and its support, enabling them to sustainably boost their business ventures. “Without the support of The Feed the Future-funded USAID Yidgiri Activity, my cooperative could not have accessed such a large loan amount,” she said. “Thanks to the training received from USAID Yidgiri on small ruminant production techniques and the manufacture of livestock feed, we are able to carry out this lucrative activity properly.”

Increased access to finance is essential for producers like Kaboré to boost their agribusinesses and participate in key markets. By supporting initiatives that break down the barriers restricting producers, the local economy benefits—through the likes of new inputs, technology and businesses linkages—and the market system grows more resilient.

Overview:

The five-year, $23.75 million USAID Resilient Communities Program (2022-2027) is designed to support households and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) along Georgia’s Administrative Boundary Line (ABL). Driven by private sector engagement, host-country collaboration and catalytic grant investments, the Program builds resilience against shocks, enhances inclusion of marginalized and at-risk communities, including women and youth, and stimulates sustainable socio-economic development.

Through previous USAID-funded projects in Georgia implemented by Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), the Program has access to a strong network of private sector, donor, NGO and Government of Georgia partners, which it uses to strengthen resilient and inclusive market systems and facilitate the development of diverse value chains. This increases revenues, creates jobs and builds community capacity to address market constraints and make key decisions. The Program targets communities along the ABL and the occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, with the goal of integrating them into the broader Georgian economy.

Program Approach:

Collaboration, flexibility, scalability and sustainability are central components of the Program. The following approaches are incorporated to successfully build resilience to risks and shocks, enhance inclusion and stimulate sustainable socio-economic development:

1. Engage the private sector: The USAID Resilient Communities Program enhances productivity, accelerates knowledge transfer and improves access to markets for rural communities along the ABL. It uses its connection to a variety of businesses throughout Georgia to provide links to enterprises, including USAID program graduates who are ready to invest back in the industry.
2. Host country cooperation: To co-invest in development solutions, the Program facilitates productive, functional, trust-based working relationships with key Georgian government agencies including the Rural Development Agency (RDA), Enterprise Georgia and Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA). These partnerships continue to be expanded and strengthened to benefit communities along the ABL.
3. Investment in catalytic grants: The Program integrates matching grants designed to have longer and deeper impacts and strengthen market systems. It targets communities and market systems where investments will catalyze systemic improvements, build resilience and strengthen engagement, competitiveness and market access.

Partners:

Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA): International agricultural development organization that specializes in the design and implementation of sustainable, enterprise-based agricultural initiatives. We work with businesses, foundations, governments, and communities to build customized local and global partnerships that meet the world’s growing demand for food.

Solimar International: U.S. small business with rich tourism development experience in Georgia. This includes developing a national tourism strategy and a COVID-19 recovery plan at the request of the Georgian government. This included designing new tour packages, tourism infrastructure and support services, and assessing and developing Destination Management Organizations.

Association Rural Development for Future Georgia (RDFG): Georgian NGO with more than ten years of experience in community development, disaster risk reduction (DRR), economic development and empowering women, youth and other marginalized groups in the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) and throughout Georgia. RDFG assists vulnerable communities in gaining equal access to services and opportunities.

The Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG): Georgian consulting firm with a wealth of economic analysis experience, including conducting value chain and niche market analysis. PMCG provides consulting services to government and nongovernmental organizations in community development and planning, private sector development, value chain analyses, MSME development and organizational capacity development.

Access to finance is one of the major barriers to increasing agricultural productivity for smallholder farmers in Rwanda. Bank branches are often located far from farmers’ homes, making it difficult for them to access the financial services needed to support and scale up their businesses.

Mobile financial services and microfinance institutions (MFIs) like Duterimbere MFI and Umurimo Finance Ltd are well-placed to combat this by offering solutions that improve access to finance and address issues like the high cost of transactions, high cost of reaching farmers in rural areas and low rate of farmer transactions, which also impacts the availability of financial data for proper loan distribution and decision-making. Since 82 percent of Duterimbere and Umurimo’s clients are farmers, they partnered with the USAID-funded Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze activity to improve farmers’ access to finance in the districts of Kayonza, Gatsibo and Nyamasheke.

Hinga Weze and its MFI partners teamed up with ADFinance Ltd, a Rwandan company specializing in the design and implementation of digital solutions for the financial sector, and local mobile network operators to develop a SMS-based software called ADMobile. The software enables farmers to conveniently deposit and withdraw funds from their bank accounts and complete mobile money transactions with ease. After its launch, ADFinance Ltd provided training to MFI staff on the service’s usage and MFI staff, in turn, educated their farmer clients on how to use the new mobile tool.

The new push-pull service works by integrating the MFIs’ core banking systems with mobile money services from network operators Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) and Airtel. Through this mobile service, individuals and savings groups can access their mobile money wallets and make payments online, without needing to travel to a physical bank branch. The new mobile financial service therefore makes it easier for farmers to save income since they no longer need to spend time and resources traveling back and forth to the bank.

The service’s simplified withdrawal and deposit transaction processes also facilitate loan repayments quicker and more efficiently than before. During COVID-19 lockdown periods when physical movement in the country was restricted, the mobile platform not only helped farmers continue using financial services, but it also helped them save time, increase transparency, improve the security of group savings and reduce conflicts among groups. Participating MFIs also saw an increase in the volume of client transactions, lowering the cost of their operations and supporting farmers to collect enough data to make improved lending decisions.

To enhance access to ADMobile and increase the number of farmers utilizing the platform’s mobile financial services, the activity and its partners developed campaigns showcasing the platform’s benefits. than 1,300 smallholder farmers have accessed over $328,000 in loans through the digital system. Beyond its support to individual farmers, 674 savings groups have used the digital financial service to connect with MFIs and access new sources of funding.

Recently, ADFinance Ltd also successfully piloted a new mobile-based service called “Mobile Lending,” which enables the automated disbursement of small loans to bank clients utilizing a defined criteria and machine learning technology. Moving forward, ADFinance Ltd aims to scale up their services, allowing them to reach more farmers in remote areas of Rwanda, to expand their technology into other countries and, most importantly, to quickly and efficiently facilitate improved access to loans for farmers.

In Rwanda, only 3.18 million out of 7.75 million individuals of working-age are employed, and the number has declined by more than 13 percent since August 2020. The agriculture sector also lost upwards of 47,000 jobs while the unemployment rate stayed relatively high at 25.5 percent among the youth population (National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda).

Linking youth to agriculture can significantly contribute to innovation, job creation and agriculture sector development. The USAID-funded Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze activity works to attract youth in agriculture by increasing agricultural productivity, employing youth through internships, improving access to finance and strengthening youth capacity in digital and private sector extension. Since 2017, the Activity has reached 733,000 individuals, of whom over 24 percent were youth.

To support the development of youth entrepreneurs, the Hinga Weze Activity provided internships to over 200 youth and awarded $92,647 in youth-specific grants for companies including Mahwi Tech, Carl Group, Zima Enterprise and KOTIB. Using the grant funds, Mahwi Tech was able to transform its M-LIMA platform, a youth-owned agricultural market information platform, into an online marketplace that can serve the dual purposes of providing market information and facilitating market linkages. Similarly, technology company BK TecHouse was able to expand its online Smart Nkunganire System to support over 200,000 new farmers, including 51,324 youth, by improving their agricultural input and information distribution and digitalizing their agrodealer operations through a Mobile Order Processing Application.

Hinga Weze’s activities also strengthened youth capacity in extension by including youth in digital extension programming, integrating youth in public and private extension services and providing youth-friendly approaches to extension and farming through the New Extensionist Learning Kit (NELK). Hinga Weze trained 133 youth on the use of digital extension, 15 youth on digital extension content creation and 21 youth on extension video dissemination. To date, these youth produced six videos on improved maize cultivation and helped train 4,000 farmers on maize production techniques using the Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International’s (CABI) App—a mobile learning application focused on the production, harvest and post-harvest management of maize.

“Youth in Rwanda have quickly adopted information communication technology (ICT) tools and platforms. By using youth to customize and promote digital technologies, the Activity is supporting the advancement of ICT and transforming the way agricultural technologies are transferred to smallholder farmers,” highlighted Laurence Mukamana, Hinga Weze Chief of Party.

While Hinga Weze continued to utilize traditional extension methodologies to help farmers adopt climate-smart and other good agriculture practices, such as on-site coaching and Farmer Field Schools, the Activity also partnered with master trainers from the Rwanda Agriculture Board and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources to help youth expand engagement, training and digital tools to extension agents and farmers through the Government of Rwanda’s Twigire Muhinzi national extension program. By leveraging existing government and private sector structures, Hinga Weze was able to create ownership and ensure the sustainability of promoted practices and methodologies beyond the life of the activity.

USAID Pakistan Agriculture Technology Transfer Activity (PATTA) was an Activity implemented by CNFA to assist Pakistani farmers transition from traditional to commercial farming, and increase smallholder farmers’ access to affordable, appropriate, and effective agriculture technologies.