Africa's Leading Voices artwork

Reimagining Nigeria's Sovereign Wealth: exploring Agrobusiness

Africa's Leading Voices

English - May 20, 2020 18:00 - 48 minutes - 31 MB - ★★★★★ - 1 rating
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If you and I, and every other person who's really interested in a better Nigeria had the opportunity to reimagine a sovereign wealth fund, in other words leaving to our inheritors, a nation that is healthier, wealthier, and wiser in that we increase our applicable knowledge quotient; what would that look like? I'm looking to speak to all sorts of people who are doing interesting and or different things in Nigeria to get us there.

My first focus is on #food. Food security, agri-food business, farming. Everybody says agriculture is the next big thing in Nigeria. My question is do we know what we are really saying? I have to admit I didn't really. Until my conversation with my guest, Suleiman Dikwa.

Suleiman is many things, businessman, agro and food security activist, avid Africa champion, and long term investor in #projectNigeria. As National Coordinator Officer for the Agric Bureau in Nigeria, Suleiman advocates for a need to synergize the agro value chain in order to avoid looming food supply crises; especially during times of unrest such as with COVID 19.

My conversation with Suleiman was in his capacity as CEO of Green Sahara Farms www.greensaharafarms.com

Green Sahara Farms is driving the Green Sahara Revolution.  Actively empowering people and harnessing available resources through a social impact investment that establishes ethical, sustainable solutions which include communities and seeks to optimize agribusiness away from traditional patterns of thinking into more sustainable and profitable systems.

In this episode we explore:
The trap of Rarity: getting sucked into spending on what we don't need 3:29
Captial retention is a key thing 4:47
Unfreezing our mindsets in Africa for change readiness 7:01
Create economies of scale through collaboration  10:07
Economic clusters as a deliberate value chain strategy 13:05
Connect the dots, ...it's a potential $300B industry 20:59
Agro product beneficiation 23:00
A mindset change is probably more important than upgrading infrastructure 24:39
Debunking the myths about localized management of capital 26:52
Mentorship is key 34:54
The challenge when big money ignores the farmer in the equation 42:04