A Solution to Rural Poverty in West Africa? - The Impact of Value Chain Services to Smallholder Growers
Dawn Hines, Co-Founder Aventura Investment Partners and President Wharton Alumni Social Impact Club, WASIC
November 20, 2019
Aventura is an impact investor in West Africa, with a goal of investing to enable African farmers to move from subsistence to middle class income levels. Rural Poverty and flight to cities by young people in Africa is well known. Why is there is no future for them in their hometown villages?
The reality in many parts of West Africa is that investment into agricultural technology and food value chain companies to serve small growers is nearly non-existent. Young people see the difficult and precarious lives of their parents and seek to escape.
Value chain services include local supply of quality seeds and fertilizers, farm machinery services, food processing and cold storage. Investments in these key areas have been proven to have a dramatic impact on the lives of smallholder farmers — doubling or tripling their annual farm incomes. In West Africa, 60% of food produced is lost due to a lack of cold storage.
With a new impact investment model, Aventura seeks to bring wealth to rural communities in West Africa, by bringing critical value chain services directly to the smallholder growers.
(Photo courtesy of Adventura Investment Partners)