Cassava, and many other subsistence crops have gained the – sometimes, pejorative – nickname: ‘women’s crop’ – a term that highlights the primacy and involvement of women across the cassava value chain from production, processing, distribution, and sales.
By re-defining the thorny problem of underinvestment in African women within the agribusiness value chain as a business problem rather than solely a developmental issue, Alitheia IDF (AIF) brings to the surface the vast untapped opportunities in the sector and framing them as a private sector issue to be resolved through conscientious capitalism and business models that centre women with the goal of meeting the developmental outcomes of economic participation, inclusive growth, and gender equality.
The implication of this is that more small-holder farmers and agribusiness companies are empowered, thousands of small-scale entrepreneurs engaged as part of the agribusiness supply chain, and private capital is put to work to drive inclusive economic development.
Thus, investing in cassava production in Africa, as Psaltry International did in 2005, directly impacts women in the cassava value chain including female small-holder farmers who grow the crop. Psaltry, a Nigeria-based cassava processing company founded by Oluyemisi Iranloye, has innovated with cassava by creating several products including sorbitol, making it the only sorbitol manufacturer in Africa and the only company in the world to produce from cassava.
Similarly, Ivili Loboya, a woman-led wool processing company, operates an inclusive value chain model that utilises wool harvested from over 3 million communal sheep farmers – most of whom are women – in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Ivili Loboya has contributed over R30 million to the local economy, revitalised niche textile markets, and improved the economic livelihood of hundreds of farmers – and other stakeholders – across its value chain.
Psaltry and Ivili Loboya are Alitheia IDF (AIF) portfolio companies – as well as CHIKA’s Food and ReelFruit, all women-led, Africa-based agribusiness companies that are actively working towards advancing gender equality through economic participation and opportunity.
ReelFruit, for instance, developed and deployed a unique model to include historically and economically excluded rural women into its mango production value chain. The company trained and supported over 50 women and provided them with resources to become partner farmers – including the provision of land, seeds, and finance. This intervention, which the company has extended in other ways, has doubled the annual income of rural female farmers involved in ReelFruit’s mango production.
In the same vein, CHIKA’S Food has relentless pursued its mission of women’s empowerment through economic productivity and education. The company commits 2% of its global profits to the education of girls in West Africa through the Snacks4Change initiative in partnership with World Vision; and its target workforce will be composed of 50 - 70% women.
Alitheia IDF’s (AIF) proactive investment in agribusiness companies like Psaltry, ReelFruit, Ivili Loboya, and CHIKA’S Food reflects our prioritisation of the sector due to the active abundance of women throughout the value chain – from the farm to the factory floor and c-suite – and the sector’s strategic place in economic growth: over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population, more than half of whom are women, are engaged in agriculture. And economic growth from agriculture is estimated to be 11 times more effective at reducing poverty than any other sector, suggesting that investing in agriculture and women is both a socioeconomic imperative and an opportunity.
Based on the foregoing premise of economic empowerment via agribusiness, we are inspired today, on International Women’s Day (IWD), a global day dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women and to reflect on the progress on gender equality, by IWD digital hub’s theme of ‘Embrace Equity’ and the United Nations theme of innovation and technology for gender equality. Both themes aim to spotlight the role of inclusive and transformative innovation in advancing gender equality – and the women behind them – and the need to drive economic participation and opportunities for women. Our campaign this IWD, therefore, focuses on how AIF and founders of our portfolio companies are creating opportunities for women’s economic participation using innovative agribusiness models for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.
AIF’s portfolio companies in the agribusiness sector are sustainably solving for food insecurity, improving the income of small-scale farmers, and driving economic growth of local communities. And, in fidelity to AIF’s founding mission of investing with a gender lens, these companies are directly impacting women’s lives across their value chain. However, despite our best effort, there is still much work to be done to achieve gender equality and equity. More gender lens funds like AIF are needed to stir growth across value chains, to find and empower more women as entrepreneurs, consumers, and decision makers and charge them with the goal of unlocking opportunities for Africa.
