Babban Gona

Babban Gona was founded in 2012 by Kola Masha with the aim of promoting agriculture and reducing unemployment in Nigeria.[1][9] Kola temporarily relocated to a small village in the Northern part of Nigeria, which had been recently impacted by insurgent activities.[9]

At inception, Babban Gona started and provide support for 100 members in Kaduna State, Nigeria.[10] Babban Gona currently has its operations in 15 states namely Abuja, Adamawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Bauchi, Plateau and Jigawa states.[11] The company has provided support for over 110,000 smallholder farmers since its inception.[12][13]

In April 2017, Babban Gona became the first Social Enterprise to win Skoll Foundation Awards.[14][15][16] In 2017, Babban Gona received a $2.5m investment from the Global Innovation Fund.[17]

Babban Gona four key services to drive success for smallholder farmers:[6][18]

1. Training and Education
2. Financial Credit
3. Agricultural Input
4. Harvesting & Marketing Support

Babban Gona provides support for smallholder farmers through what the company calls "Trust Groups", grassroots level farmer cooperatives.[19] A group of 3-5 smallholder farmer members,[7][20] with a trust group leader assigned to each group, who is selected after passing agronomic knowledge test and oral leadership interview.[20] After a trust group is established, members of each trust group are trained on the following - agronomy, financial literacy, business skills and leadership through the BG Farm university platform.[21] Babban Gona members have a loan repayment rate estimated to be at about 98%.[20] Other trust group members are responsible for repaying if a trust group member defaults.[20]