Emmanuel Maduka (24)

Malnutrition has been a problem of over 200million Africans and about 80million who live under 2USD in Nigeria. In order to combat this, Emmanuel Maduka noticed the vast potential locust bean, which is described as the cheapest source of nutrients, and he capitalized on this to produce what is known as ‘Hiru’. He has sold the product to people in need of low cost and high quality nutritious food products. He created a collaborative model called Hiru Champions Program which equips rural women with new skills and resources to reprocess locust beans in regulatory approved ways which they buy off the women and earn 15-255USD daily depending on their production thus empowering women and investing in the quality of their lived. Currently, there are 20 women in the Hiru Champions Program and Emmanuel Maduka’s team has won 20,000USD to increase their production capacity and impact 200 women economically by 2020.

Chiamaka Ndukwu Theresa and Kenneth Okonkwo (25)

Chiamaka Ndukwu Theresa and Kenneth Okonkwo founded Agrohive to boost rural smallholder farmers’ productivity by giving them access to advanced Agricultural Extension services, access to improved farm inputs, and agricultural technologies.

Agrohive has created more man power in rural agriculture through organizing and assisting over 1,800 underserved youths and women in rural communities to participate actively by establishing 123 community demonstration farms and also training rural farmers, women, youths, and children in communities across Ekiti, Abeokuta, Lagos and Oyo state, with sustainable, innovative and climate smart agricultural practices as a means to reduce rural poverty through increased household income, and help to achieve national food security. This initiative has helped 2,300 households to combat hunger, created over 300 employment opportunities and ensured improved livelihoods of 300 people.

Uka Eje (29)

Thrive Agric, selected as one of the most promising companies of the year at the Africa CEO Forum in 2018 was founded by Uka Eje. Thrive Agric is an agricultural technology-enabled company that works with smallholder farmers in Nigeria to give them access to finance. The company has been able to fund over 15,000 farmers across Nigeria and has a workforce of 96 permanent staff and 14 ad-hoc staff. One Farmer at a time, Thrive Agric is increasing agricultural participation by allowing individuals easily fund a farm with a promise to deliver profitable returns to them while empowering farmers at the same time. Uka provides microloans to Nigerian farmers and a channel to sell produce to large buyers like Flour mills. He helps make farmers more efficient by providing seamless access to financing, agricultural best practices and a premium market for their products.

Divine-Love Akam (24)

Divine-Love Akam is an Economist & Agripreneur. She is the Co-founder/CEO E-farms, a company that feeds the world by providing financial linkage between farm-investors and smallholder farmers; and empowering passionate youths with the practical skills and knowledge in building sustainable agribusinesses. In 18 months of operation, E-farms has raised over $500,000 in farm investments for 2,050 smallholder farmers working in 8 agricultural value chains across 7 states of Nigeria (Oyo, Ogun, Plateau, Kaduna, Katsina, Jigawa, and Kano), while creating market linkages and access to good agricultural practice training for over 5000 farmers. About 200 young people in our farmer’s academy have also been trained in order to help these youths build the right agriculture practices and encourage youth participation in agriculture.

Rotimi Olawale (29)

Rotimi Olawale is the founder and CEO of JR Farms Limited (registered in Nigeria and Rwanda), a leading agribusiness in Africa determined to transform Agriculture in Africa by undertaking opportunities for growth and business that will engender sustainable food production and increased incomes for farmers in Africa. JR Farms has agribusiness operations in Nigeria (Cassava value chain), Rwanda (Coffee value chain), and Ivory Coast (Cocoa Value Chain) respectively.

Olawale champions Agric initiatives with social impacts such as Inmates Farming Scheme- first of such in the history of Nigerian Prisons; low interest farmers’ cooperatives supporting 93 farmers in Nigeria and over 500 cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast. Through his initiatives in the Agric sector in Africa, he has created over 300 jobs.

He is a resource person on African Agribusiness and Rural Entrepreneurship at Suffolk University, Boston, America.