Strategic Objective 3: Build the competitiveness of small, medium, and large agribusinesses to participate in local, national, regional, and global markets.

Strategic Outcome 3: Enhanced capacities and improved business practices of agribusiness in Nigeria to be more competitive and profitable. Market access is a significant challenge for Nigeria’s MSMEs. There are three key market channels for businesses in the country: government (via contracts), local retail operators, and large commercial businesses (both local and international). Long-standing established relationships between government and established business make it difficult for new market entrants in key economic sectors.

Partnering with larger businesses may offer smaller ventures more consistent business or longer contracts, local small agro processing firms are unable to link with larger businesses. Many large enterprises are wary about working with new or small local businesses because of concerns about reliability. Many international companies with a presence in Nigeria opt to import most of the goods and services they need to run their businesses. Local MSMEs are constrained by low production capacity, poor technical and business management skills, poor access to finance and weak access to market information, particularly large institutional buyers.

As for export markets, physical isolation and logistical challenges of getting products to port are major constraints, owing to poor infrastructure. Often, however, small businesses limit their own access to markets, being unable to meet quantity and quality demands of potential (large) customers. Without investment and capacity development, however, most local enterprises will be unable to meet the demand.

NABG’s market linkages programme seeks to promote a business environment in which local small and medium sized agricultural enterprises in Nigeria can compete in domestic, regional and global markets and can contribute significantly to wealth and job creation. Our engagements with our private sector members’ reveal that improving capacity among local SMEs is critical to developing an enabling environment in which markets can grow and thrive.

To address some of the identified challenges, NABG will develop an Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Centre (AEC). This Centre will aim to increase the competitiveness and growth of agribusiness SMEs by providing holistic and tailored services to SMEs and provide market linkages, and business coaching to growth-oriented SMEs to generate a bottom-up catalytic effect in the local market.

This integrated package of services will be provided with technical support and in collaboration with institutional partners such as Nigerian Export and Import Bank (NEXIM), Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Bank of Industry (BOI), Bank of Agriculture (BOA), among others.

Three outputs will contribute to strategic outcome 2 namely:

1. Standards for agricultural commodities document developed.

2. Training for national, state, and local actors for implementation and enforcement standard and ratings for agricultural conducted.

3. Partnership with relevant National regulatory organizations such as Nigerian Export and Import Bank (NEXIM), Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), NAFDAC, SON, among others established.

Key activity: Build core competencies of agribusinesses in business entrepreneurship, business diagnostics, and management skills development.

To achieve the key activity, NABG will provide access to skills and technical assistance as follows:

1. Provide training on business entrepreneurship, business diagnostics, and management skills development.

The training will be structured as follows:

Component 1: Core Competency Training

An initial core competency training of SME owners/managers will serve as the basis of all other components. The training will target each year at least 100 MSMEs including farmer cooperatives with growth potential. The beneficiaries will be identified through three (3) sources:

(i) a call for expression of interests advertised in the local media,  (ii) large anchor companies for the linkage program, and  (iii) business associations. All potential beneficiaries will fill a questionnaire designed to assess their support needs and growth potential. Participants (of which 40% shall be women empowered enterprises) will be involved in entrepreneurship training and will be supported on developing business plans; how to move from merely running a business to building growth-oriented businesses that can be depended upon to deliver international standard products and services.

The Core Competency Training curriculum, will be based on the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) model and business EDGE model of International Finance Corporation (IFC), designed to give participants an opportunity to improve critical core business skills: opportunity seeking and initiative; persistence; fulfilling commitments; quality and efficiency; calculated risk taking; goal setting; information seeking; systematic planning and monitoring; persuasion and networking; independence and self-confidence.

ii. Finance: Provide financial management skills and access to appropriate financing products.

iii. Business services: Establish AEC that provides mentoring and coaching, and assistance with navigating regulatory requirements, standards, and compliance.

iv. Network: Promote agribusiness entrepreneur networks; Support organization of business competitions, trade shows, and fairs; Facilitate awareness building and business promotion to reinforce collaboration and the efficiency of the agro-industrial clusters; and Support activities promoting regional standardization, stamps, and trademarks.

Technology: Provide training and technical assistance in technology and innovation, information,

production processes, layout, equipment, rationalization of production and technology access.

vi. Capacity building: Provide technical assistance in business plan development, trademark strategy, quality assurance, market development, logistics, product design, marketing, technology transfer and building strategic partnerships.

2. Collaborate with credible Business Service Providers (BSPs) to improve the quality of support that agribusinesses in Nigeria receive.

3. Map existing Business Service Providers in Nigeria and identify BSPs that work with and support businesses in the agriculture sector.