Babban Gona Farmer Services is an award winning, impactful, sustainable and scalable agri-tech social enterprise dedicated to improving the lives of Nigerian smallholder farmers by providing training, credit, agricultural inputs, harvesting and marketing services to enable to increase their productivity and profitability, on average to 2-2.5 times the national average. Since inception, Babban Gona has served 120,000+ smallholder farmers, with 220,000+ acres under sustainable cultivation, while achieving an average repayment rate of 98%. Since 2013, Kiva lenders have provided over $3.9 million worth of loans to 18,510 of Babban Gona’s member farmers.

In 2018, Babban Gona carried out a study to understand some of the barriers that hindered women from participating and benefiting equitably from its core agricultural program. Some reasons cited included: difficulty in getting the approval of male family members, reluctance to interact with male extension workers, and travel required for women to participate in the program information sessions. To address these challenges, Babban Gona developed the Women’s Economic Development Initiative (WEDI), to overcome these social barriers. Babban Gona has supported over 100,000+ women through a combination of training support and credit packages.

This Kiva loan will help Babban Gona create sustainable income generating opportunities and provide loans in the form of birds, poultry feed, and veterinarian services to over 10,000 women.