From Plow to Prosperity

10/11/21 • 50 min

Smallholder farming in Africa is a precarious existence. Low economies of scale, commodity price swings, out-of-date agronomic practices, and the effects of climate change conspire to trap farm families in a never-ending cycle of poverty. At the same time, Africa’s booming youth population is entering a saturated workforce without enough jobs to absorb them. In Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, that has led to a surge of gang violence and a wave of insurgencies over the last two decades.

Kola and Lola Masha, a Nigerian-born and US-educated couple, set out in 2012 to help mitigate the spread of both economic and physical insecurity. Their social enterprise, Babban Gona (“Great Farm” in the Hausa language), offers a rare model that not only makes farming lucrative and an attractive opportunity for Nigeria’s youth. It also has become a profitable and bankable business for commercial lenders. For the first time, they are committing capital to support smallholder agriculture at large scale—and in the process, potentially creating a pathway out of poverty for millions. Highlights of this episode include:

why smallholder farming is central to the poverty problem in Africa (3:42)
the wave of violence in Nigeria fueled largely by unemployed youth (7:21)
the Mashas’ rigorous process to identify agriculture as a job-creation engine (9:44)
Trust Groups, or mini-cooperatives, and other core elements of the Babban Gona model (14:22)
the impact on the lives of farm families (25:39)
how Babban Gona is raising capital to super-scale the model (32:36)
and how it mitigates climate change and other risks (39:39).

For the full transcript go to: https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/from_plow_to_prosperity

why smallholder farming is central to the poverty problem in Africa (3:42)
the wave of violence in Nigeria fueled largely by unemployed youth (7:21)
the Mashas’ rigorous process to identify agriculture as a job-creation engine (9:44)
Trust Groups, or mini-cooperatives, and other core elements of the Babban Gona model (14:22)
the impact on the lives of farm families (25:39)
how Babban Gona is raising capital to super-scale the model (32:36)
and how it mitigates climate change and other risks (39:39).

For the full transcript go to: https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/from_plow_to_prosperity

Previous Episode

A Fair Deal for Coffee Growers

For decades, smallholder farmers who produce the world’s supply of quality coffee in developing countries have barely earned enough to stay in business. Many have gone under. Millions of those still producing live in poverty and go hungry. Now climate change is threatening their livelihoods as well. The main problem is a supply chain stuffed with so many middlemen, each taking their cut, that only a fraction of the proceeds from pricey specialty-grade beans gets to the grower.

That was the picture in Nicaragua until Rob Terenzi, Noushin Ketabi, and Will DeLuca started Vega Coffee in 2013. On the face of it, their solution seemed simple: Enable the growers to process and ship roasted coffee directly to consumers in the US—thereby cutting out up to a dozen middlemen and retaining the earnings for themselves. It’s not that others hadn’t understood the problem before, but no one else had figured out how to solve it at scale. This episode follows Vega’s story, covering:

Rob’s initial discovery of the coffee growers’ dilemma (0:36);
the structural inequities of the global coffee trading system (4:37);
why Fair Trade and other “certified” designations fail to pull growers out of poverty (6:46);
Vega’s early challenges with roasting ovens (11:31) and transporting fresh beans to the US (13:08);
tapping Nicaraguan growers’ skills (16:13) and prioritizing women to promote gender equity (18:22);
growing the US customer base (22:05);
expansion to Colombia through a partnership with Mercy Corps (26:35);
and the promise of Vega’s model to rectify other broken supply chains of commodities around the world (28:52).

For the full transcript go to: https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/a_fair_deal_for_coffee_growers

Next Episode

Healing From Trauma

The Northern Triangle countries of Latin America are some of the most violent in the world. El Salvador and Honduras have ranked among the highest murder rates for years. It’s not only the gang violence we hear most about, but also domestic abuse and gender-based violence. And the trauma it leaves behind has a devastating effect on entire communities, from the hospital staff who treat victims to police officers patrolling the streets—and especially on children and their ability to learn.

Celina de Sola spent a career in humanitarian aid work before returning to her hometown of San Salvador in 2007 to look for a way to protect children from violence. With her husband, Ken Baker, and brother Diego, she started with a single volunteer-led after-school club for kids in one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. Today, Glasswing International equips schools, hospitals, and police forces with the knowledge and training to overcome the debilitating effects of violence-induced trauma. To date, Glasswing has reached more than 2 million children and adults in nine countries across Latin America—as well as in New York City. And it’s partnering with national governments to further scale up a “trauma-informed ecosystem” that not only improves students’ academic performance and resilience, but also creates a restorative antidote to help break the cycle of violence. This episode tells Glasswing’s story, including: