A Fresh Approach to Nigerian Agriculture

Mmasichukwu's daily routine is gruelling. She wakes before dawn to prepare food for her family, then travels to a nearby farm to gather Ugu leaves. 

After a 15-kilometre round trip, she heads to the market to sell the leaves. Whatever remains unsold is discarded. This cycle repeats every market day, leaving Mmasichukwu trapped in a relentless struggle for survival.

Doris manages onions shipped from Jos, Plateau State, hundreds of kilometres away. By the time they arrive, a third are damaged. She sorts the rest, selling lower-quality onions for NGN 500 (USD 0.63) per kg instead of NGN 1000 (USD 1.3).

Whatever remains unsold is stored indoors to slow deterioration, but price reductions are inevitable, eating into her profits.

ColdHubs was founded by Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a former radio show host committed to promoting farming best practices and market price transparency. Despite improvements in on-farm processes and increased yield, crops were spoiling rapidly after harvesting due to the absence of adequate storage options. Recognising the lack of access to cooling facilities among small-scale farmers, Ikegwuonu set out to tackle the problem.

In 2015, ColdHubs introduced a walk-in cold room with a window unit air conditioner, touring it across 11 states to raise awareness among farmers about this innovative technology. While farmers welcomed the innovation, concerns arose about their ability to maintain the cold rooms over time. Hence, the concept of Cooling-as-a-Service (CaaS) was born.

ColdHubs offered to own, maintain, and upgrade the cold rooms for farmers in exchange for a storage fee of NGN 200 (USD 0.25) per crate (20 kgs) per day. This approach empowered farmers with access to temperature-controlled storage solutions without the burden of investing in the equipment and taking care of its maintenance, revolutionising the agricultural landscape in Nigeria. A decade later, ColdHubs operates 58 solar-powered cold rooms of 3 and 10 metric tonnes across 28 states of Nigeria.

As recently as 2023, ColdHubs has expanded its infrastructure, introducing one 10-metric-tonne cold room and two 100-metric-tonne cold rooms.

In ColdHubs’ modus operandi, community engagement isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s a guiding principle. ColdHubs trains members of the local community to serve as cold room operators, entrusted with the crucial tasks of checking crates in and out, maintaining room sanitation, and educating farmers on the importance of post-harvest cooling.

All cold rooms are managed by women, a deliberate move to challenge traditional gender roles in agriculture: despite their active involvement in fieldwork, women are frequently excluded from the process of commercialising crops and receiving their rightful share of the profits.

ColdHubs partners with local female market leaders, known as Iya Oja in Nigeria’s Yoruba region, to find candidates like Bose who may be facing socio-economic challenges or violence. The cold rooms are strategically placed in safe, public locations like markets for physical accessibility. Having female operators enhances their cultural accessibility, especially for female farmers who otherwise face restrictions due to cultural norms around mobility.

In 2021, the Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant (VCCA) team assessed ColdHubs’ facilities to explore how a digital tool could enhance cold room management and complement their servitisation business model. Since then, Coldtivate has been piloted in 14 ColdHubs rooms, with 240 unique users including smallholder farmers and small-scale traders.

Nnaemeka Chidiebere Ikegwuonu, CEO of ColdHubs, notes, “As we expand, we’re focusing on digitalizing our operations. The Your VCCA project has provided Coldtivate, an all-in-one tool for inventory management and customer updates. We’re integrating Coldtivate as a crucial training component for hub operators.”

Previously, operators used manual registration manuals for check-ins and check-outs, which led to untapped valuable data and cumbersome tasks like crate inspections, cross-referencing, and fee calculations. Feedback from operators, who found manual processes challenging, led to the creation of Coldtivate.

Coldtivate simplifies the process by registering new farmers and tracking crates, using temperature sensors and harvest dates to calculate the remaining storage life of fruits through digital twins developed by Empa. This innovation leverages sensor data to optimize storage management.

Farmers with smartphones can track storage days via the app, while those with feature phones receive SMS notifications. Operators contact those without phones in person. During check-out, the app calculates charges, generates receipts, and records payment methods.

Cold room utilisation can be low when farmers face uncertainty about produce sales. While waiting for better market prices is ideal, it’s often impractical, leading many farmers to sell crops immediately to address urgent financial needs.

To address this, ColdHubs has partnered with Heifer International to set up one 10-metric-tonne and two 100-metric-tonne cold rooms. These facilities enable retailers and supply chain actors like ShopRite and Spar to buy and store goods longer, improving market access for farmers.

In the future, these larger cold rooms could help small traders by supplying fresh produce via ColdHubs' refrigerated trucks. This initiative aims to prevent crop spoilage and preserve economic and nutritional value, as seen in Doris's situation.

Your VCCA in Nigeria is supported by the Fund for the Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag), commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The project is being carried out by the BASE Foundation and Empa on behalf of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmBH.