‎‎This was made known at the recently held EDC’s AG-SME Bootcamp and Pitch Competition, a three-day, fully sponsored intensive Enterprise Development Center program for agric SMEs across the country.

The event, recently held at the EDC headquarters in Lagos, aimed to strengthen Agric-SMEs, deepen Business Development Service Provider (BDSP) linkages, and improve access to finance for young entrepreneurs.

‎Addressing business owners and entrepreneurs at the programme, Dr. Nnenna Ugwu, head of Alumni Relations and Support Services, and a member of the management board of EDC, said,

“We want to watch great entrepreneurs who have applied for this AG-SMEs empowerment programme. Those who win will each receive a grant of one million Naira to boost their businesses”.

According to her,

“They have gone through the Bootcamp, and shared fantastic business ideas, and also showed that incredible people are playing in the agric space with innovative ways of doing business. So, that’s practically why we are here, to select the best from the best.”

Speaking on the partnership with SMEDAN, AGRA, and Kaduna Business School, Dr. Ugwu stated that EDC’s relationship with Kaduna Business School, SMEDAN, and AGRA is cemented on the fact that they are willing to ensure that SMEs in the country take their rightful place as the true engine of growth of the economy.

SMEDAN is a regulatory body; therefore, everything about small businesses in Nigeria from the government’s perspective is on SMEDAN.

It is no brainer that we are partnering with the regulator, because EDC has been in this partnership long before I joined the organisation, she added.

“The truth is that if you want to do anything in terms of demonstrating the strength, supporting, and growing small businesses in Nigeria, the first go-to place is EDC. Then, of course, SMEDAN creates an enabling environment for us to thrive because of the government.”

‎‎Speaking on the impact of the partnership with other relevant organisations in the SME ecosystem, Dr. Stanley Ibeku, Lead, Research, Monitoring & Evaluation at the Enterprise Development Centre of the Pan-Atlantic University, said,

“We are here because the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Enterprise Development  Centre, (EDC) of the Pan Atlantic University, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), and Kaduna Business School (KBS), have come together to be able to strengthen the capacity of agric SMEs so that they will be able to access available financing as well as have that capacity to be able to grow and scale their businesses by offering them different technical and managerial competencies, whether it is in investment, operation, management, personal and financial management.”

‎Revealing the winners of the grant, Dr Ibeku said,

“We have eight grant winners, and the cash grant of N1 million each to the eight SMEs,” adding that “We’ll also be providing business development support where we will engage business consultants who will work with these agric SMEs for three months, free of charge, courtesy of the project. These business development consultants will then help them to be able to take their businesses to the next level,” he said.

‎‎One of the beneficiaries, Ms. Damilola Awojobi, CEO of Dainty Foods, who lauded the project, said,

“It has been impactful. I would say it’s been eye-opening, those two words particularly, because my eyes were brought to see things again that I had formerly neglected as a business owner, things like, taking particular types of records and being deliberate about monitoring the flows that come into the business and out of the business, your capital investments, your credit investments and all of that, and how to gain access to all of these things in a matter of four days, it was a whole lot.  it was enlightening,” she added.

‎Another beneficiary, Dale Junaid, said,

“It has been an amazing experience. Meeting some facilitators who took us on personal finance, access to finance, management, and bookkeeping was enlightening. I have personally learned a couple of things that would improve my business going forward.”

“Therefore, I believe this programme has actually impacted a lot of people, including me, particularly when it comes to pitch preparation, slides, and investment readiness,” he added.

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Titled “Funding the Future: Powering Nigeria’s Agric-SMEs,” the recent Lagos event brought together agric business stakeholders from around the country. Its goal was to connect them with key players in the Nigerian agriculture sector and provide strategies for funding, growing, and scaling their businesses.

The two-day session featured insightful panel discussions, funding opportunities, strategies, and success stories from some of the most successful food and agric SMEs, and high-value networking with some financial institutions and investors.

Reaffirming the EDC commitment towards supporting SMEs in the country, the Head of Alumni Relations and Support Services at EDC, Dr. Nnenna Ugwu, stressed that the Centre is committed to helping agric-SMEs in the country to find funders, grow, and scale in a manner that is required and attainable in other countries.

“‎Today, we are utilising Business Development Service Providers (BDSPs) to support small businesses on the AGRA platform and explore how they can be funded. And when we mean funding, it is funding that works, funding for the future, and sustainable funding.”

Speaking about the partnership with AGRA, a sustainably growing African Food System, Dr. Ugwu said, “EDC is an umbrella body that commits in totality its life in building, hand-holding, and training entrepreneurs and small businesses. We train them, we hand-hold them, we try to create an environment for them to thrive; therefore, we are committed to doing everything for SMEs.”

“Therefore, entrepreneurs in the agric-space need to be able to grow and sustain their businesses. We don’t give money,” she emphasised, adding that “But, of course, we train them to be able to receive that money. We try to give them a link to those who can offer them grants and seed funding.”

Dr Rufus Idris, country director for AGRA, ‎ said,

“‎We’re here today to see how to strengthen the ecosystem of Business Development Service Providers (BDSP), and also strengthen service provision to Agric SMEs. We’re trying to see how that space can work better for us, ensuring that there’s a strong connection between the SMEs that are trying to grow, expand, stabilize, or sustain their operations, and linking that to getting the right kind of support from the business support services providers.”

According to him, “And that way, we can ensure that Agric SMEs can actually tap into the skills required to build their own capacity internally and better strengthen their business for growth.”

‎He said,

“‎This partnership is born out of the fact that AGRA is committed to transforming Africa’s food system. In Nigeria, we are committed to supporting the Nigerian government in transforming the country’s food system.

Importantly, he stressed that Nigeria aims to increase agricultural output, boost food production, and feed its growing population, while also reducing post-harvest losses.

‎‎To do that, he stated, “We cannot just focus on working with smallholder farmers alone. We also have to focus on the private sector players there. A lot of the agric SMEs are struggling with a lot of things, some access to finance, being able to tap into the new market, being able to improve on business efficiency and operation, energy support services, and cost within that space.”

Meanwhile, one of the participants at the programme, Principal Consultant/CEO at Doctor Fish Agric Consult, Israel Yusuf, thanked EDC for the opportunity provided for those in the ecosystem to thrive.

“I want to appreciate EDC for what they are doing. This is a timely intervention, bringing together the different actors in the value chain to have a conversation on the challenges with a focus on solutions. EDC is an enterprise-driven organisation, an enterprise-focused organisation that believes that every challenge has a solution.”

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