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Partner description:
 
Babban Gona Farmer Organization is an award winning, high impact, financially sustainable and highly scalable social enterprise dedicated to improving the lives of Nigerian smallholder farmers, and part-owned by the farmers that it serves.

Babban Gona provides enhanced agricultural technologies and end-to-end services that optimize yields and labor productivity, while simultaneously improving market access. Babban Gona operates in the Northern Nigerian states of Kaduna, Kano and Katsina, with expansion plans for an additional 3 states to the east. These states have among the most favorable climates for agriculture in the country yet also the highest levels of poverty and insecurity. 
 
Requiring as low as 0.1 hectares of land per farmer, Babban Gona is highly accessible to financially excluded communities and aims to empower youth in particular, thus discouraging them from seeking an alternative with extremist groups. In addition to providing direct benefits to smallholder members, Babban Gona’s model unlocks employment opportunities for members of the communities in which it operates. The social enterprise recruits men and women directly from the community in roles that range from enhanced extension service officers to land preparation and harvesting contractors.
 
Babban Gona’s vision is to scale its model to impact and improve the livelihoods of 1 million farmers by 2025.
 
A unique lending approach:
 
The organization operates as a franchise model: Babban Gona is the franchisor providing services to franchise cooperatives, called “Trust Groups”, made up of smallholder farmer members. Each Trust Group receives four types of services:

1. Financial credit
2. Development and training – including training on agronomy, financial literacy, business skills and leadership training
3. Input services -  agro inputs like seeds and fertilizers on credit
4. Output services - post-harvest marketing services 

Kiva loans are used to enable Babban Gona to provide its farmer members with high-quality, low-cost inputs and mechanization services on credit to increase productivity and crop yields. At harvest, Babban Gona farmers have access to Babban Gona warehouse facilities where they are able to deposit their grains. Babban Gona smallholder farmers do not sell their maize to Babban Gona, instead, the organization markets it on their behalf ensuring the reduction of post-harvest losses and increase in farmers’ access to premium markets. 
 
To enable farmers to meet their short-term cash needs, Babban Gona provides loans in the form of a “harvest advance”. This flexible capital enables members to meet their personal and working capital requirements, from paying school fees to obtaining inputs such as fertilizer and seeds, without worrying about immediate repayment.

Babban Gona is continuously able to attract hardworking smallholder farmers, having supported its members to achieve 2x yields and 3x net income compared to the average Nigerian farmer. From 2015 to 2017, interest in Babban Gona’s services increased by over 5X, measured by the increase in applications for Trust Groups. Babban Gona received international recognition in 2017 as the recipient of a prestigious Skoll Award, and its founder Kola Masha has been featured on TED Global.