Nigeria’s Babban Gona, the smallholder farming enterprise led by Kola Masha, is set to receive US$300,000 in advisory support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to strengthen its farming model, expand its farmer network, and improve access to formal financing, adding to a broader push by development financiers to scale agricultural lending in the country.
According to a project disclosure reported by Shore Africa on October 23, 2026, the IFC advisory project was approved in March 2026 and is scheduled to run until December 31, 2027. Its estimated budget covers activities intended to strengthen Babban Gona’s delivery model, deepen engagement with financial institutions and support sustainable growth.
The initiative targets one of the persistent constraints facing Nigerian smallholder farmers: access to finance for seeds, fertiliser, equipment and other production needs. Many farmers operate without sufficient collateral or a formal credit history, limiting their ability to secure loans from conventional financial institutions.
Babban Gona addresses these barriers through a franchise-style model that organises farmers into groups and combines access to credit, agricultural inputs, training, extension support, storage and market access. Its technology platform helps coordinate these services and monitor farm performance. The approach is designed to improve productivity and make smallholder farming more commercially viable.
The new advisory support builds on an earlier IFC initiative involving Sterling Bank and Babban Gona. In a project disclosure first published in November 2024 and updated in February 2026, IFC outlined a financing package of up to $25 million for Sterling Bank. It comprises a $20 million Global Warehouse Finance Program facility and an unfunded agricultural risk-sharing facility of up to $5 million, covering a $10 million farmer portfolio expected to be originated through the bank’s partnership with Babban Gona.
The arrangement is intended to encourage agricultural lending by reducing part of the risk borne by the financial institution. IFC’s disclosure says the programme could reach 110,000 farmers across 73,000 hectares, improving access to inputs, agricultural equipment, insurance and markets.
Babban Gona has also attracted capital from other development finance institutions. In September 2025, British International Investment announced a US$7.5 million debt investment to support the company’s expansion, food-security objectives and climate resilience among smallholder farmers in northern Nigeria. More recently, Dutch development bank FMO disclosed a prospective facility of up to $36 million to help expand Babban Gona’s farmer-service model. These are separate financing arrangements.
The company has said its model has served more than 500,000 smallholder farmers cumulatively, while its annual reach is considerably smaller. At a September 2026 climate-finance conference, Masha also said Babban Gona had deployed more than $250 million in financing and recorded a loan repayment rate of about 99 per cent.
NBF Insight
The significance of IFC’s advisory support extends beyond the $300,000 budget. Agricultural finance remains difficult to scale when lenders lack reliable information about farmers, production risks, and repayment capacity. Strengthening Babban Gona’s systems and relationships with financial institutions could help make its farmer-service model easier to finance and expand.
However, advisory support alone cannot resolve the structural challenges facing Nigerian agriculture. Insecurity, climate variability, input-price volatility, and weak rural infrastructure can still undermine yields and repayment. The real test will be whether stronger financial partnerships translate into more accessible credit, better farm productivity and higher net incomes for farmers.
For Nigeria, the opportunity is to build financing systems around how smallholder agriculture actually works, rather than expecting farmers to fit conventional lending models. The impact of this latest IFC project will ultimately depend on whether it helps convert an established farming model into sustained, measurable improvements in farmers’ access to capital and markets.
