Expanded Access to Services for Agricultural Enterprises (EASE)

Despite Nigeria’s plentiful resources including hydrocarbons, approximately 70% of Nigeria’s 140 million people live in poverty. Most rural Nigerian families work in the agricultural sector as small scale, subsistence farmers. Key challenges for these families include limited access to credit, agricultural inputs, extension services, market intelligence, and social services. While women undertake much of a household’s work, including in agriculture, their access to productive assets and social services, including to health care is often low. 

The Expanded Access to Services for Agricultural Enterprises (EASE) project commenced in 2010 to address the dual problems of poor business management skills and lack of access to credit.  EASE increases credit access by combining capacity building for local organizations by providing microfinance loans.  The David and Lucille Packard Foundation provide these loans. The activity addresses the need for basic bookkeeping and business planning skills to help farmers and agricultural processors maximize their production and earning potential, and resolves the problems of underproduction and inefficient allocation of resources due to inadequate information and technical assistance.  EASE will increase profitability 5,000 small agricultural enterprises in three states in northern Nigeria. The project will strengthen the entrepreneurial skills of 11,000 farmers, add value to selected agricultural commodities and disburse approximately $800,000 in cumulative loans to about 11,000 borrowers to purchase complementary inputs. The output and revenue from the sales of maize and cassava will bring about increased profitability for these farmers. The project beneficiaries are mostly women.