Nestlé to Support 2,000 Agriculture Entrepreneurs in Nigeria, other West Africa countries
Nestlé Central and West Africa (CWA) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) have launched a new joint initiative dubbed Youth Agripreneurship Development Program (YADIS) to catalyse the sustainable development of farmer livelihoods and youth opportunities in farming and agri-food businesses in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria.
The two and a half-year partnership which seeks to promote agricultural entrepreneurship for African youth will benefit a total of 2,000 young agripreneurs and smallholder farmers, particularly women, in the three countries with training on good agricultural practices and entrepreneurial skills to produce and supply high quality maize, soybean, rice, cassava, cocoa and coffee.
In Ghana, the program will be implemented with a Ghanaian agribusiness, Sahel Grains targeting 300 young agripreneurs with specialised capacity building and mentoring, who will in turn serve another 49,500 farmers in Northern Ghana.
Focused on the maize value chain, this program will increase incomes of the targeted youth agripreneurs and farmers, fifty percent of whom will be female. Project interventions include input and output aggregation; training in improved production and post-harvest management practices accompanied by services such as mechanisation services and crop insurance.
In line with bringing to live its purpose of “enhancing quality of life and contributing to a healthier future”, Nestlé will provide as part of its contribution, technical support to improve grains quality and strengthen services offered to farmers in upgrading the maize supply chain.
The Company will also provide a reliable premium market offtake of the maize by Sahel Grains. It has also committed to purchasing 1,500 MT of Maize and 2,500 MT of Cassava from the youth agripreneurs who will deliver the acceptable quality produce.
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