Aderonke Aderinoye (second from right) worked for 5 years in one of Nigeria’s top banks, before she made an unusual choice. She quit her job to go into farming, and then founded Agrihub Nigeria, a private company that is now partnering with 2SCALE to empower women and youth from 65 communities around Lagos. She spoke to IFDC’s Mahamane Toure about her work, her passion and her ambitions.
It is very unusual for a young lady to leave her comfort zone. From banking to farming: was it your passion?
Aderonke Aderinoye: It was passion, but also a sense of responsibility. I believe that we should not be importing so much food in Nigeria. I believe that even the poorest person in Nigeria should have access to 3 nutritious meals a day. I believe agriculture has the potential to solve our unemployment problem. Africa has the potential to feed the world. The world should not be feeding us, we should be feeding the world. Youth have the power to unlock this potential, but the question is: how do we get them to look at the agricultural sector differently? How do we get them to find solutions to the challenges we have in the sector? You ask why I would go into agriculture. Why shouldn’t I go? Let people see that you don’t need to be uneducated to be a farmer. Let youth see that there is nothing wrong in being beautiful and being a farmer. Let young people see that they can become stars, even if they are from a small village.
Your vision is inspiring. But how do you turn it into action in concrete terms?
Aderinoye: One concrete way is the hubs and the clusters that we are building, in cooperation with 2SCALE. Imagine you have 50 youth working together at one location. Working together will lower their cost of production. It is easier for them to access technical support, to access financing, to buy inputs together, or to make collective sales. One challenge is that youth who do enter the sector are working individually, but agriculture is a business where you need the numbers. So we work with young men and women to show them they can make money, they can be successful. We started the Young Farmers Incubator program where we bring together young people and train them for 12 weeks, on the fundamental things they need to know about running an agri-business, in the technical as well as business areas. They learn business planning, farm planning, record keeping, land preparation, management, marketing, regulations… They go through the whole process from putting seeds in the ground to harvest and marketing. The program has changed their mindset – they realized the potential, and all of them became farmers or agri-entrepreneurs. None of them dropped out.
So what we are hoping to achieve over time is to have more young people going through such a program to prepare them for the real business of agriculture, not the things they learn in classes but experiential learning. We are also introducing them to mentors that they can call when they have problems. It takes time because agriculture is not a sprint but a marathon. You have to be resilient. But I think we are gradually getting there.
When you think about agribusiness, you think about market first, right? Where is the market? How big is it? How diversified is it?
Aderinoye: The market in Nigeria is very large and diversified. We have household consumption and also a huge market for industry. For instance, the chili in the Indomie (a popular brand of noodles) comes from Indonesia, not from Nigeria, while we have local farmers that can supply the necessary volume. There are a number of spice producers that require herbs: African basil, chili pepper, turmeric, ginger onion and others. Local companies are still importing most of their raw material. There is a huge market if farmers can produce to meet the standard that these companies require.
How is 2SCALE supporting you to turn these opportunities into commercial success?
Aderinoye: Our journey in 2SCALE just started. We are still young but the success so far has been phenomenal. We are working with young people from 65 farming communities, including over 3,000 farmers that produce cassava and pepper mainly, but also tomatoes and other vegetables. Farmers have challenges: low productivity, access to market, knowledge gap in terms of agricultural best practices. With 2SCALE, we have been able to mobilize communities to work together to identify what interventions they really need. The plan is over time to also begin to build structures and systems in these communities so that they can be more profitable even as smallholder farmers. We have been well received by the locals, especially the chiefs of the communities. We are hoping that this relationship will become even stronger over time, leading to economic and social development in these communities; and that farmers will continue to improve what they are doing. We are hoping to cover 500 hectares of farm land and involve 2500 actors including not just farmers, but also women processors and others who provide services such as transport.
Why do you think 2SCALE will help you reach your targets?
Aderinoye: Because I like the approach 2SCALE uses. 2SCALE starts with “This is what you have, this is the market you need to meet” and then takes you through the process, and finally leaves you with the capacity to run the system yourself. So they (2SCALE) do not impose things on you. They don’t get you to do what they want. Instead, they show you what exactly you need to do to achieve your goals, for example becoming highly productive, being able to access certain types of market or services like finance. They also facilitate connections with potential clients. If they teach you, for example, how to increase tomato yield, they don’t leave you once you harvest, they also guide you on how you can connect with the market… these are your potential customers, this is what they need… and they facilitate that connection. Farmers also need finance, so 2SCALE facilitates discussion with banks. Farmers don’t speak the language of the banks and bankers don’t speak the language of the farmers, so 2SCALE is the interpreter between the two. This kind of mediation and support is going to be instrumental. And this way of doing agribusiness is proving to be not only successful but also replicable and scalable across the board.