Mary Nnah
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Swiss-based foundation, launched at the United Nations in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition, is calling on women and youth-led agribusinesses, farmers associations and cooperatives producing and processing nutrient-enriched Vitamin A Maize, Vitamin A Cassava and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato food products to apply for its first edition of the Microgrant for Empowerment, which will be implemented in Kaduna, Benue, Nasarawa and Oyo States.
The agricultural sector remains the largest employer in Nigeria, employing more than 36% of the labour force and accounting for 21.42% of the Gross Domestic Product in Q1 2021. With 82 million hectares of arable land, only 34 million hectares cultivated, 14.5 million people requiring urgent assistance on acute food and nutrition insecurity and the country’s growing population, agriculture is increasingly becoming important as a solution to meet consumer and industrial demand.
GAIN, therefore, works with governments, businesses and civil society, to transform food systems so that they deliver more nutritious foods for all people, especially the most vulnerable.
The microgrant for empowerment is designed to support agribusinesses working on the nutrient-enriched Vitamin A Maize, Vitamin A Cassava and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato and Rice food products with equity-free grants to scale their businesses and tackle food insecurity.
The empowerment programme will provide grants of 2,000,000 naira in zero-equity to ten select businesses in each of the four project states.
The application is now open to both businesses and groups (associations and cooperative societies) who have met all the following conditions, but not exclusively:
To qualify to apply, the founder of the business applying must be 18 years of age or over by October 2022 and must reside in Nigeria.
Furthermore, the interested participants must be operating businesses functioning in one of the value chains; Rice, Vitamin A Cassava, Vitamin A Maize, and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato and such businesses must be registered with CAC for a minimum of two years.
Participants who are presently operating businesses functioning in one of the project states; Kaduna, Nasarawa, Benue and Oyo states are qualified to apply for the GAIN Microgrant for empowerment, at:https://forms.office.com/r/mGPFZ6jKpB
The deadline for the submission of applications, according to organisers, is November 30th, 2022.
