Nasir Yammama is the founder and CEO of Verdant ArgiTech, a company supporting farmers and other stakeholders in the agricultural value chain and enhance agricultural sustainability throughout Nigeria.
Through the company’s access to scientific data and partnerships with financial institutions and government entities, Verdant offers information to allow farmers to make informed decisions for their businesses, as well as provides services like access to market, agricultural credit, index insurance and warehousing to increase their productivity, food security and living standards.
Yammama was first inspired to found Verdant because of his father, who was a farmer. Having received a master’s in creative technology from Middlesex University, he found a way to use his technological skills to benefit the agricultural sector.
“I just happened to be around at a time when the world needed innovations in agriculture,” he told TBMT UK. “I observed the global environmental and food crisis that had arisen over the past few decades, particularly across Africa. $50 billion worth of food is imported annually into the continent, despite the fact that about 80% of the population is actively involved in agriculture. That’s an indication that there are some serious structural problems out there. I figured that I could employ my skills in building technical solutions and apply them to agricultural development, as opposed to any other industry.”
Yammama has served as a coach at the MIT Entrepreneurship and Innovation Bootcamp.
As a winner of the 2014 Virgin Atlantic Enterprise Challenge, he’s received mentoring from none other than Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson. In 2017, Yammama received the Queen’s Young Leaders Award from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his work.
Tags: Africa, agriculture, AgriTech, Farming, Nigeria
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