Agriculture

Mastercard Foundation Fund for SMEs ($126 Million Funding)

The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity is a seven-year, US$ 126 million Fund that aims to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across the agriculture, climate adaptation and digital economy sectors in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity is the second phase of a program from the Mastercard Foundation. The first phase was the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity, an eight-year program established in 2014. That Fund supported 38 participants from 15 countries in Africa innovating and scaling financial products and services targeting the rural population with a large focus on agriculture. One major highlight is the Fund enabled over 5.3 million people to have access to financial products and services, exceeding an initial target of 1 million. Now, the main objective of the Resilience and Prosperity Fund is to unlock enterprise growth and catalyze, scale-up and sustain the creation of dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young women and men, young people with disabilities and refugee youth. Interventions of the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity The Fund for Resilience and Prosperity aims to address a broad spectrum of SME-specific challenges as well as macro issues using four interventions: 1. Challenge Fund: Offering direct financial support through a challenge fund to address the resource flow barriers faced by SMEs looking to scale-up and, in turn, create and sustain employment opportunities for young women and men. 2. Connect Fund: Providing investor readiness support to the SMEs and negotiation of partnerships with potential financiers to ensure sustainability and growth. 3. Technical Assistance (TA): Provision of technical assistance and capacity building to address the barriers concerning human capital and access to markets. 4. Convening and influencing: Convening relevant stakeholders to encourage an enabling business environment through experienced partners and digital platforms to drive systematic change and address the issues that impede the creation of work opportunities for the youth, especially young women. Thematic Sectors The Fund will focus on SMEs that are implementing solutions in three (3) key sectors: agriculture, climate adaptation and digital economy. Click here for more information about the resilience and prosperity fund. Click here to apply. Also Read: Storytelling Strategies for Accessing Funding

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Flour Mills Nigeria Innovation Competition (Win N5m Grand Prize)

Call for Applications for the Flour Mills Nigeria (FMN) Innovation Competition is ongoing. The call for applications, with the theme, Driving Food Self-Sufficiency in Nigeria Through Precision Agriculture is open in two categories. If you’re a Nigerian MSME or student, you stand the chance of winning prizes of N5 million, N3 million or N2 million. FMN’s Prize for Innovation was established to encourage new ideas and innovations in the food and agro-allied sector in Nigeria and across the continent and how these can impact and enable a sustainable food system in Nigeria. This is the third edition of the Flour Mills Nigeria Annual Prize for Innovation competition, and it will will focus on discovering innovators who are actively and innovatively driving the attainment of food self-sufficiency in Nigeria’s food and agro-allied sector. This year’s campaign is designed to facilitate the promotion of local content development in Nigeria’s food and agro-allied sector while also encouraging sustainable food production. Participants in this year’s contest will develop novel solutions to facilitate a paradigm shift from dependence on imported raw materials to developing local capacities to sustain local communities. Who can apply for the Flour Mills Nigeria Innovation Competition?  Category 1 – Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) Click here to apply for Category 1 on or before the 15th February 2024. Category 2 – Nigerian Students (Undergraduate and Postgraduate Level)  Click here to apply for Category 2 on or before the 15th February 2024.

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SBN Nourish Nigeria Challenge: NutriPitch 2023

Apply for the SBN Nourish Nigeria Challenge 2023 NutriPitch Competition, presented by GAIN × FATE Foundation’s ScaleUp Lab Agribusiness Program. The Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network (SBN) is hosting the 2023 Edition of SBN’s Annual pitch competition in partnership with FATE Foundation. FATE Foundation is the longest-running enterprise support organization with over 22 years of delivering pre-incubation, incubation, and accelerator programs. The project is a Business Model Research project and is part of a larger program grant of EUR80m focused on six African countries (Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda) The aim of this partnership is to identify innovative business models that are focused on accelerating low-income consumer’s access to nutritious food while being profitable; that is, the approach that can enable a company to capture value (and thus be profitable) while still providing the food at a price the customers are able and willing to pay. In addition, the project will provide technical assistance to entrepreneurs in the nutrition space to strengthen their capacity and develop their business models leveraging on innovation to improve access to nutritious foods in Nigeria. Program Highlights of the SBN Nourish Nigeria Challenge Capacity Building on: Eligibility Requirements for the NutriPitch 2023 You must: Benefits of the SBN Nourish Nigeria Challenge For more information about the the NutriPitch competition, click here. Apply here on or before December 3, 2023.

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GAIN Micro-Grant Funding for Nutritious Businesses

The GAIN Micro-Grant funding is opened to nutritious food businesses in Oyo, Nasarawa, Benue, and Kaduna States. About The GAIN Micro-Grant Funding for Nutritious Businesses The micro-grant funding aims to fund nutritious food businesses operating in the Vitamin A Cassava, Vitamin A Maize, Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato value chains in Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa and Oyo States with equity-free grants to scale their businesses and support the commercialisation of nutrient-enriched food products in Nigeria. The microgrant programme will provide equity-free grants of N3,000,000 (Three million naira) to 33 select businesses across the four project states. Eligibility Requirements for the Micro-Grant Funding Applicants MUST operate in the following target groups: Click here for more information about this opportunity. Apply here on or before November 12, 2023.

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Agribusiness Innovation Challenge

The Agribusiness Innovation Challenge aims to identify, develop, and scale innovative solutions to food safety challenges in Nigeria through mentorship and $16,000 equity-free grant.  It also aims to support healthy food supply chains that can meet the needs of a growing population while addressing the urgent challenges posed by climate change in Nigeria. In addition, the Agribusiness Innovation Challenge will provide technical assistance training to women and youth-led start-ups to strengthen their capacity, improve their access to financial services, and develop their business concepts to improve food supply chain efficiency in Nigeria. Eligibility Requirements for the Agribusiness Innovation Challenge Solution Areas The challenge welcomes solutions or viable products that address FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN challenges in Nigeria.  Examples of solutions may include and not be limited to Cold Chain Storage and Tech-enabled Food Traceability. Benefits of Participating in the Innovation Challenge Click here for more information. Apply here on or before Thursday, October 19, 2023. Also apply for: GAIN Micro-Grant Funding for Nutritious Businesses

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AYuTe Nigeria Challenge

Compete for a chance to win a share of $20,000 in the AYuTe Nigeria Challenge. The AYuTe Africa Challenge Nigeria is an enterprise development program initiated by Heifer International and implemented by Wennovation Hub to identify, nurture, and support innovative, relevant and technology-driven agric-centric enterprises to grow, scale and thrive. Candidates should be early-stage or growth-stage youth-led agritech businesses/companies with innovative solutions impacting smallholder farmers at scale. Eligibility Criteria for the AYuTe Nigeria Challenge The company must have: Application deadline: 31st July, 2023, by 5pm WAT. For more information about the application process, click here. Apply for the AYuTe Nigeria Challenge here.

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GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize 2023

Do you operate in the agribusiness value chain? Then, you should participate in this contest. Generation Africa rolls out the 2023 edition of the Gogettaz Agripreneur Prize Competition. This year is the fifth annual GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize Competition, supporting youth-led agri-food businesses to #GrowAfricaGrowLife. The competition will reach its thrilling climax with a captivating final pitch contest, set to take place live at the AGRF Summit, which will hold in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this September. A remarkable opportunity awaits two aspiring African entrepreneurs, one male, and one female, as they will each be granted a transformative prize of US$50,000. This generous grant will propel their ventures forward, accelerating their path towards success. Eligibility criteria– The entrepreneur The Venture Ready to apply for the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize, click here.

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