Citibank Nigeria Limited (Citi) has provided N4 billion ($10 million) financing to Babban Gona to support input credit and harvest advance to smallholder farmers in northern Nigeria.
The pioneering transaction will enable 41,000 smallholder farmers to increase their farming income by 350 per cent, hence contributing to improved economic opportunity in fragile communities.
The loan is part of “scaling enterprise facility”, a Citi partnership with the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Ford Foundation, which enables earlier stage, innovative and inclusive businesses in emerging markets to access local currencies.
Babban Gona is an award-winning agrotech company specialising in the provision of end-to-end value chain services to smallholder farmers, including inputs, credit, advisory and offtake across Nigeria.
Founded in 2012, Babban Gona aims at sustaining farming communities and creating jobs in agriculture for young farmers by enabling one million smallholder farmers, mainly in Northern Nigeria, to augment their farming income by 2025.
The company has supported over 280,000 smallholder farmers and provided them with nearly $200m in loans. It has grown to become the single largest maize-producing entity in Africa, farming over 170,000 acres this season, providing enough food to feed every man, woman and child in Nigeria for nearly two weeks.
Kola Masha, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Babban Gona, said, “With the support of our partners, like Citibank, Babban Gona has consistently made farming more profitable for tens of thousands of smallholders across Nigeria where we have improved their net income and agricultural productivity to twice the national average.”
Ireti Samuel-Ogbu, CEO of Citibank, said, “We are pleased to partner with global development agencies and partners such as DFC and the Ford Foundation in the structuring of a pioneering social finance facility aimed at sustaining the Nigerian agricultural sector.
“Babban Gona’s track record and unique business model renders it a partner of choice for scaling positive impact and enabling progress in Nigeria.”
The transaction, which is part of Citi’s $1tr commitment to sustainable finance by 2030, contributes to progress on several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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