IFAD Agrihub Nigeria

IFAD Agrihub Nigeria onboards nine private sector partners

The Rural Youth Employment Opportunities: support to integrated agribusiness hubs in Nigeria (IFAD Agrihub Nigeria Project) recently partnered with 11 private companies in Nigeria to create sustainable employment and income opportunities for youth, while leveraging existing expertise

The IFAD Agrihub Nigeria Project leverages the partners’ extensive experience in their areas of expertise such as crop production, food processing, renewable energy, waste recycling and soilless agriculture to train youth for self-employment and fulfilling careers in agriculture.

The new partners are Ashdam Solar Academy, Cato Foods, Palmtree Technologies Services, Gycon ISN, MicStanley Mega, Protein Needs Farm, NFGCS Farms, IITA Youths In Sustainable Waste Eco-recycling Programme and Soilless Farm Lab. The partnership will also strengthen community involvement in the areas where these partners are located, thus improving rural livelihoods through project interventions.

Meet some of our partners

Ashdam Solar Co. Ltd.: it is a renewable energy organization in Nigeria, committed to providing clean, affordable, and reliable smart energy solutions. The company’s reputation has been built by providing quality alternative energy solutions to the Nigerian community with exceptional client satisfaction and its educational services like training on solar energy. 

The company focuses on training girls in renewable energy and micro-grids in their Queen Solar Academy. Ashdam Solar ownership and management has 50% active female participation with a policy of maintaining 50% female workforce.

Cato Foods: Cato Foods, is a fast-growing innovative food company that is dedicated to improving lives and livelihood of people through processing and providing value-added nutritious food products that deliver essential micronutrients in staple foods. With a vibrant management team having over 30years combined industry experience and about 8 years’ operational experience, Cato Foods has grown from a factory processing less than 1 ton of cassava roots per day in 2015 to an average of 7tons per day with an installed capacity of processing about 35tons of Cassava daily.

Cato Foods produces highly nutritious food products including Garriplus, Fufuplus, Catobits snacks, high quality cassava flour and a cassava-based custard made from vitamin A bio-fortified cassava. As a pioneer and leading biofortified crops processor in Nigeria, Cato Foods has supported organizations such as HarvestPlus, GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) on programs focusing on working with local food processing SMEs, developing opportunities for the commercialization of processed biofortified crops products, integration of women and youths into the vitamin A cassava & maize value chains among many others. Since inception, Cato Foods has trained over 10,000 beneficiaries in agribusiness especially the biofortified crops value chain with many jobs created across the country. Beyond training, it also focuses on providing mentoring to ensure sustainability of the different enterprises the trained youths are involved in.

Palmtree Technology Services: Palmtree technology Services is a solar energy company involved in the production of solar application system like, Farm Oven/dryer, solar generator, power bank, Solar Stoves etc. Palmtree is a facilitator for NYSC Oyo State on Solar and CCTV installation and have organized seminars, conferences and trainings on renewable project and solar energy. Palmtree technology services is a member of the Small and medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), and in partnership with Bank of Industry (BOI) to facilitate small loan and start up loan for trained youth.

Gycon Integrated Nigeria: The company focuses on proffering green and renewable solutions, and encouraging sustainability via biogas green technology, thereby eliminating numerous negative environmental side effects.  Gycon helps individuals and communities move away from reliance on non-renewable energy sources, by training them on production of bio-gas.

Micstanley mega farm Limited: Michstanley mega farms limited is a private company, with Its head office located at Umuagwo, Owerri, Imo State. Michstanley mega farms limited has an oil palm plantation of 500 hectares, a palm oil mill with a capacity of 10ton fresh fruit bunches per day, a refinery fractionation plant with a capacity of 15ton per day, a palm kernel crushing plant with a capacity of 40ton per day, and an outlet for retailing and selling of palm oil.

Protein Needs: Protein needs farm is a sole proprietorship company established in 2017, located at Akabor community in Oguta local govt area of Imo State, with the main aim of modern farming system. It is an integrated farm that is into livestock management, cassava production and palm plantation. Protein needs farm has been able to train youths, tertiary institution Industrial training students, Youth corps member in various agricultural value chains. The farm has the capacity of 50,000 layer birds and a minimum of 1300 crates of egg daily, 50 pieces of pigs, 200 rabbits, 4000 stands of oil palm plantation, 10 hectares of cassava farm, and a Staff strength of 65 workers.

NFGCS farms: Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS) is an organization, which engages in the production, processing and distribution of Agro products, with a vision of helping youth achieve food sufficiency.

NFGCS was established to carry out large agricultural services, with the objective of rural commercialized farming, aimed at producing high-quality and nutritional farm produce for sales and consumption, as well as carrying out sustainable agricultural empowerment-related programs to tackle hunger at the local/grassroots level, reduce poverty in rural Nigeria communities, while helping local farmers grow their earning capacity to be financially independent by providing supports to farmers at the downstream sector, first, within its immediate locality and other parts of the country; and to create social-economic developments in local farming communities.

YSWEP: Y-SWEP is a youth initiative program of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), that aims to address the cumulative effects of wastes in society through the establishment of a circular economy that addresses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of affordable and clean energy, good health and well-being. Through activities of Y-SWEP, the challenges faced by several communities including environmental pollution, health challenges, and limited access to clean and affordable energy, proper waste management are being addressed.

Y-SWEP has been involved in awareness creation on waste management and construction of bio digesters used for generating biogas. The bio-digesters have been used to convert biodegradable wastes produced at IITA to biogas energy that has been used as clean energy for cooking. Although biogas technology has been in existence for a long period, Y-SWEP has innovated the utilization of the by product from the bio-digesters which is bio-fertilizers for enhancing soil fertility and crop production.

Soilless Farm Lab: Soilless Farm Lab is into the production of vegetables using hydroponics and olericulture. The farm trains young people on soilless vegetable production, through its work and learn agribusiness series, which entails practical on the job training.