Our vision is to build a self-sustaining Africa that will feed the world — Uka Eje, Co-Founder/CEO, Thrive Agric

In this interview with MATHEW IBIYEMI, Co-Founder/CEO, Thrive Agric, Uka Eje posits that an agricultural revolution is essential for the elimination of poverty in the country. Speaking on the role of smallholder farmers, he explores the role of funding, private-public-partnership to the success of this vision. 

Thrive Agric’s goal is to lead an agricultural revolution in Nigeria, can you elucidate more on this?

Thrive Agric’s goal actually extends to the entire continent and beyond. Our vision is to build an Africa that feeds herself and the world. But of course, as you mentioned, we must first begin with an agricultural revolution in Nigeria.

Let’s talk about the numbers. According to statistics, Nigeria has close to 40 million smallholder farmers and about 34 million hectares of arable land: 6.5 million hectares for crops, and 28.6 million hectares for meadows and pastures.

The current share of agricultural contribution to Nigeria’s GDP stands at about 22%, and the sector remains the second largest employer in Nigeria, employing close to 35% as of 2020. And yet these numbers do not add up to our current realities. As a nation, we should have no business battling food security with the resources we have. But sadly, this is not the case.

And this is because there are gaps in our agriculture value chain; particularly food production and distribution, which is why my Co-founder, Ayo Arikawe and I, started Thrive Agric in 2017.

We identified numerous gaps that cripple the progress of the sector and limit Nigeria’s food production potential. Then we set out to resolve them, beginning with the production stage where farmers are constrained by limited access to finance, quality inputs, and advisory on farming best practices.

In the processing stage, buying or renting equipment is capital-intensive. There’s also a lack of technical know-how as well as the prevalence of insufficient storage facilities and mechanisms to prevent post-harvest losses and ensure maximum ROI especially for export.

Then there’s the distribution stage. These farmers who produce our food don’t have access to premium markets to get the best prices for their commodities, and so they rely on a myriad of middlemen who water down their profits and expose consumers to more unpredictable markets. Inadequate transportation systems also contribute to the limitations at this stage.

To address these issues, we created an outgrower financing model which empowers smallholders farmers by providing them with capital/quality inputs, technology and data-driven best practices, as well as enabling their access to premium markets.

Of course, it’s difficult to attain efficiency and scale without the use of technology so we built an Agricultural Operating System (AOS) which powers a suite of apps that enables and enhances different aspects of our operations.

This is our fourth year of operations and so far, we have been able to support over 200,000 smallholder farmers, in collaboration with the government as well as our local and global partners.

So yes, we are leading an agricultural revolution in Nigeria, and we are grateful for enablers such as your organisation that support us in achieving this mutually beneficial goal.

Concerning food security, what role do you think smallholder farmers will play in actualizing this for Nigeria?

According to research, about 80% of the agriculture industry in Nigeria is predominantly made up of smallholder farmers, which simply means that they’re the backbone of the industry.

At Thrive Agric, we believe that if we solve the challenges that limit them, most of which I mentioned earlier, then we will unlock our nation’s food production potential. We will actually achieve two things. Smallholder farmers will gain improved livelihoods and we will build a sustainable structure for more commercial than subsistence farming to enable food security.

When we scale this across Africa, which largely mirrors our circumstances, we stand a much greater chance at achieving gobal food security.

That’s why we’re focused on them, constantly innovating to reduce the challenges they face; from when they source for inputs to when they put a seed in the ground through to harvest, to when their goods hit the market. Thrive Agric is smallholder farmer obsessed!

Funding remains a challenge to food security. How have you bridged the funding gap?

We’re still working to bridge the funding gap. In fact, we are actively seeking more funding and investment support as we speak.

So far, we have received investment and funding support from local and international partners that are equally passionate about smallholder farmers and food production/security.

We’re currently working with the Central Bank of Nigeria via its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) and Sterling bank. And earlier this year, we received a $1.75 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support 50,000 farmers.

In the past, we’ve received funding from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and OCP Africa.

Ultimately, the most effective and sustainable approach is to attain self-sufficiency, so we are working to build a model that funds itself.

How has the partnership with CBN aided the actualization of Thrive Agric’s vision?

As I just mentioned, ThriveAgric and the Central Bank of Nigeria share similar goals regarding food security in Nigeria, and so we receive funding from them for our operations.

This helps to increase our impact as well as track record of success with smallholder farmers, and opens more doors for further funding in a more sustainable way from the same and other sources.

Also, knowing that we have the backing of the government, which is the reason we have become partners, goes a long way to boost our hopes of establishing lasting infrastructure to ultimately attain Thrive Agric’s great vision for our country and continent.

I think it’s safe to say that it’s a new dispensation for Thrive Agric following the resolution of the crisis that rocked Thrive last year. What should we be expecting from Thrive?

It is. Indeed, that we were able to withstand and resolve the crisis, which largely resulted from the fallouts of the pandemic that also rocked the entire world, is a testament to our resilience as a business. And that in itself is very reassuring.

At the moment, having paid off all the returns owed to crowd funders earlier this year, we’re focused on improving and strengthening our team, business model and processes to support more smallholder farmers across Nigeria.

We are also looking to expand our operations beyond the shores of this country in the foreseeable future.