Food security means having, at all times, both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet dietary needs for a productive and healthy life. A family is food secure when individuals don’t live in craving or anxiety toward hunger.
Agriculture is the main source of employment for a good number of Nigerian citizens making up 36% of total employment according to the World Bank. A strong Agricultural sector can improve livelihood, and food security including access to safe food, improve rural welfare as well as contribute to the national income.
Furthermore, according to a report from PWC, The Nigerian agricultural sector holds the key to the country’s drive for economic diversification. The sector has grown consistently at an average of 2.6% over the past three years. As of Q1 2020, agriculture accounted for about 22% of the Nigerian gross domestic product (GDP). However, while Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the world, accounting for about 21% of global production, the country earns very little in the global export market.
To improve the situation of cassava earnings, Greenhills Cassava Farmstead is building a sustainable business to alleviate the negative trends of earnings from Agriculture and the value addition problem of cassava exports.
Greenhills Cassava Farmstead is creating virtual smallholder farmers within its farmstead by helping people around the world buy farmlands for cultivation within its farmstead, managing these farms from cultivation to harvesting and selling the produce to off-takers for processing and final distribution.
Although Greenhills has to contend with several structural challenges (such as resource shortages e.g. limited rainfall and inputs, Violent conflicts between host communities, lack of access to finance to scale and create value addition to the farm produce, etc.), we have continued to stay true to our core objective of creating more farmers to improve food security in Nigeria while creating wealth for the virtual farmers within or community. Below is a video of the CEO of Greenhills Cassava Farmstead, talking about the importance of owning Farms to Improve Food Security in Nigeria.
