Babban Gona
Babban Gona, which means "Great Farm" in the Hausa language, is a social enterprise organization that provides support for smallholder farmers in Nigeria to become more profitable. Babban Gona is part owned by the farmers it serves. History. Babban Gona was founded in 2012 by Kola Masha with the aim of promoting agriculture and reducing unemployment in Nigeria. Kola temporarily relocated to a small village in the Northern part of Nigeria, which had been recently impacted by insurgent activities. At inception, Babban Gona started and provide support for 100 members in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Babban Gona currently has  its operations in 6 states namely Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Bauchi, Plateau and Jigawa states. The company has provided support for over 110,000 smallholder farmers since its inception. In April 2017, Babban Gona became the first Social Enterprise to win Skoll Foundation Awards. How It Works. Babban Gona four key services to drive success for smallholder farmers: Babban Gona provides support for smallholder farmers through what the company calls "Trust Groups", grassroots level farmer cooperatives. A group of 3-5 smallholder farmer members, with a trust group leader assigned to each group, who is selected after passing agronomic knowledge test and  oral leadership interview. After a trust group is established, members of each trust group are trained on the following - agronomy, financial literacy, business skills and leadership through the BG Farm university platform. Babban Gona members have a loan repayment rate estimated to be at about 98%. Other trust group members are responsible for repaying if a trust group member defaults.