In the light of dwindling oil revenue and Nigeria’s historic dependence on it as her sole source of income, there’s a renewed cry for the diversification of the economy. While many options exist, agriculture seems to be a quick and fast way to optimize our available resources for collective wealth creation for the country.
Hence, I will be doing a series on investing in agriculture. This will take a dive into basic facts to know, ready opportunities, accessing finance, maximizing ROI and marshaling effective resources.
Watch this space…
I am the author of Scaling for Success: Empowering African SMEs. I am a Partner at Sahel Capital, a food and agriculture-focused private investment firm in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sahel Capital manages the Fund for Agriculture Financing in Nigeria (FAFIN) and the Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa (SEFAA).
I co-lead SEFAA, an impact-first fund investing in agribusinesses that provide direct or indirect benefits to smallholder farmers across 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. I also lead investments and portfolio management for SEFAA and manage FAFIN portfolios, two of which were recently exited. I am a director on the board of one of the portfolio companies and serve in advisory roles for several startups and SMEs.