Lola Masha is the co-founder and executive director of Baban Gona Farmers Services Limited. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Virginia and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Berkeley, California.

She transitioned from the tech world to agri-business in 2019, taking on the role of executive director, corporate services, at Babban Gona. She oversees finance operations, sales, marketing, supply chain and logistics, as well as driving business intelligence and development. In this interview, she speaks about Babban Gona and the agric sector. Excerpts:

About Babban Gona

“Babban Gona” is a Hausa word that means “Great Farm”. Founded in 2012, Babban Gona was borne out of a vision to solve the alarming rise in the rate of youth unemployment within the country, and to put an end to the rise of insecurity. Our personal mantra is to drive positive impact, and with our realisation that unlocking the economic potential within the agricultural sector could create millions of jobs and propel the country towards the achievement of food security, in 2012 we embarked on a journey to make one million farmers richer by 2025.

We are an award-winning, high impact, financially sustainable and highly scalable social enterprise. Interestingly, we are also part-owned by the farmers we serve. Our unique model caters for and serves the individuals at the bottom of the pyramid, and we offer the following services to our member farmers: training and development, financial credit, agricultural Inputs, harvest, storage and marketing Services.

We believe that if we support and continue ensuring the growth of the agricultural sector, Nigeria’s economic future will be secured.

Impact on agric sector

We have had significant impact both directly and indirectly with tens of thousands smallholder farmers. Through our services we have been able to increase their productivity by 2x the national average and their profitability by 2.5x to 3x the national average. We are persistently increasing the earnings of our members relative to the national average.

We also have a “Women in Economic Development Initiative” (WEDI) which has the goal of recruiting female relatives of our member farmers to retail fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) such as bouillon cubes, noodles, pasta and other products. So far, we have over 1200 across our hubs and have plans to expand to impact more women. These are centred on improving the living conditions of living for our members who cannot be trying to solve the problem of hunger and remain hungry.

We became the single largest maize producing entity in Nigeria in 2015. We were also the first for-profit social enterprise in history to win the prestigious Skoll Award in 2017 and listed by the London Stock Exchange in 2019 among the “Companies to Inspire Africa”. Our impact has also been featured in Forbes Magazine, where we were listed as one of “2019’s Top 5 Most Innovative and Impactful Social Enterprises”.

Our role

A major thing that sets us apart is our understanding of the role that the smallholder farmers play in the sector, who we understand to be the backbone of the sector. The result of neglecting this integral group is that they have remained impoverished, earning less than $2/day according to World Bank estimates.

We are playing our role in ensuring that they become profitable by solving the problems they face in relation to low yields, as well as significantly reducing their costs of production, enabling their market access and ensuring good prices for the commodities which they produce. Information is also key for these smallholders; being aware of innovations and getting access to tools and inputs to make work more efficient is usually the difference between a great yield and a poor one. We also enhance the human capital of our members via our Farm University Program that provides access to critical knowledge in best agronomic practices, enabling them to gain a more commercial outlook to farming.

Role of technology in the mix

One of our core values is ‘continuously innovate’. We understand the need for technological innovations in the sector- it is an integral part which we all must acknowledge if we want to increase the productivity and efficiency within the industry.

At Babban Gona, we ensure that our process and approach to solving smallholder farmers problems is constantly evolving and that we find innovative ways to meet their needs. We have an outstanding Tech team committed to creating and implementing innovative ideas.

For example, our use of technology reflects in the host of mobile apps that enhance our work and enables us to deliver maximum value to our farmer members. We have adopted innovations such as the use of Artificial Intelligence to monitor and analyze farm nutrients, growth rates, and curb deficiencies in crops. GPS for tracking purposes, Facial Recognition apps for farmers who want to secure loans among other technological tools that we use.

Related News

We believe that we need to leverage technological innovations to enable us achieve our vision of making a million farmers more money. To this end, we take conscious and proactive steps to integrate technology into all our operations and are steadily becoming more tech-driven in all-round.

How do you recoup your credit and at what interest rate?

We have a strong 8-level risk mitigation system put in place. This has proven to be successful and sustainable, as we have been able to maintain repayment rates of up to 99 per cent. Typically, loans accessible to smallholder farmers are offered at rates between 27 per cent and 60 per cent APR, compared to our rates, which have consistently remained lower and affordable.

Challenges

We are our own competition, and we keep surpassing our goals and raising the stakes as we grow. Agriculture as a business has an inherent nature of unpredictability, but, given the mitigation protocols we have set up, we are strategically positioned to manage the challenges as they come. We also work tirelessly to strengthen and improve our processes as an organisation.

 Agric landscape in Nigeria

The agricultural landscape in Nigeria has an abundance of potential. A lot of ink has been spilled about how most of this potential lies untapped, but we are not giving up on our hopes to have a strengthened and vibrant sector able to meet the food needs of the entire population, as well as providing jobs for the teeming mass of unemployed youth.

What future does it hold for the country?

Agriculture has always been an essential driver of economic development. In Nigeria, the case is no different with a contribution of up to 22 per cent to the GDP. If we pay as much heed to the sector as we should (ie both private and public sector participants), the future of agriculture in Nigeria can be and will be transformed and we can gain significant ground in reducing hunger, unemployment and becoming a global agricultural powerhouse.

Smallholder farmers

All our farmer members are grouped into Trust Groups. The average trust group has 3-5 members. Placing the farmers in the trust groups increases the farmer’s chances for succes through a shared accountability system because members ensure that each person takes care of his or her fields which makes up the ‘big farm’ for the group.

Through the suite of services within our model, we provide access to low cost credit, quality inputs and training and development for smallholders to significantly scale their production.

Following this, we provide all-season round support, ensuring that all our farmers have the needed resources to succeed

Job creation, empowerment,  and expanded incomes for farmers. How do you do this?

This indeed is our essence.

From serving about +100 farmers in 2012 when we first started, we have made remarkable progress till date, franchising over 6,000 grassroots-level Trust Groups made up of almost 20,000 member farmers and across over 16,000 hectares of land (an area equivalent to over 2 Manhattan Islands) in the last planting season. The average yields per hectare our members have consistently achieved has been a strong 2x increase in comparison to the national averages. Our impact has not been limited to only member farmers, but to their families and communities as well.