Financing Cocoa at Scale: The Story of Ibom Agro-Allied Farms
For Inyene Benson, agriculture was never supposed to be the first chapter of his career.
After studying Human Physiology and spending eleven years in the oil and gas sector, Benson initially viewed farming as something he would pursue later in life. He started a small farm producing fruits and vegetables but quickly encountered a familiar challenge: demand was far greater than what his farm could supply.
The challenge became an opportunity.
Rather than limiting his business to what he could produce himself, Benson began aggregating from other farmers. In 2016, he established Ibom Agro-Allied Farms Limited, with the business becoming fully operational in 2021. Today, the company works across Akwa Ibom, Oyo, Kwara and Cross River States, aggregating cocoa and other agro produce from a growing network of farmers and connecting them to markets. The business now works with about 1,500 farmers, providing extension support on Good Agricultural Practices, export requirements and quality standards aligning with the EU Deforestation Regulations (EUDR) requirements while building the supply systems needed to serve commercial buyers. However, the growth came with a major constraint: access to finance.
“We had the buyers. We had farmers who could give us the volume. We understood the market. The missing link was money,” Benson explains.
For a growing agribusiness, insufficient collateral and the need for patient, appropriately structured finance made it difficult to secure the working capital required to buy cocoa at scale.
Finding the missing link through VACE Project
Benson’s major constraint began to change when Ibom Agro-Allied Farms participated in the Agricultural Business Analysis and Investment Training (AgBAIT) organised by GIZ – implemented Value Chains for Agribusiness, Climate and Employment (VACE) Project. The VACE Project is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to empower smallholder farmers and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to leverage value addition opportunities and transition to higher-value activities along dairy, cocoa, tomatoes and ginger.
The training helped Benson and his team analyze their business more systematically, strengthen their financial projections and, critically, understand what financial institutions needed to see before investing.
For Benson, this was the game changer. “It was like having all the building blocks but not knowing how to build. We were doing everything right, but we didn't know how to hack it - how to present the business in the way financiers needed to see it.”
Through the training, coaching and investment-readiness support, Ibom Agro-Allied Farms was connected to financial institutions during a matchmaking programme. It was there that the company met Wema Bank, opening the door to a financing relationship that would transform its growth trajectory.
The company initially secured ₦200 million in financing. Within five months, after successfully deploying and repaying the facility, the relationship grew. The financing was increased to ₦500 million in six months giving the company the working capital it needed to significantly expand its business, while strengthening his cocoa supply chain.
The impact has been tangible.
Since accessing this finance, Ibom Agro-Allied Farms has expanded its farmer network from 800 farmers to 1,500, strengthened its team to about 20 staff, expanded its extension services and secured a larger warehouse. The financing has also enabled the company to purchase cocoa at volumes and prices commensurate with its investment capacity - strengthening its ability to fulfil commercial orders and close critical gaps in the cocoa supply chain.
The benefits are extending to women as well. Approximately 30% of the farmers in its network are women, while the expansion has created additional employment opportunities for women involved in cocoa sorting and warehouse operations.
For Benson, scaling the business is not simply about buying and selling more cocoa. It is about building a stronger, more traceable, globally competitive and climate smart cocoa value chain. Ibom Agro-Allied Farms works with farmers on improved agricultural practices and is increasingly focused on meeting international market requirements, including understanding and responding to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
The company's long-term ambition goes beyond aggregation. Benson wants Ibom Agro-Allied Farms to become a recognized name in traceable, high-quality cocoa processing, with plans to expand into processing and create opportunities for youth through internships and practical exposure to agriculture. “In ten years, we want to be a household name for traceable and high-quality processed cocoa, a standard for cocoa processing.”
More than training: changing how a business sees itself
Looking back, Benson believes the biggest value of VACE intervention was not simply the funding connection, but the transformation in how the company understood its own investment potential.
Without the training and advisory support, he believes the company would still have been navigating the same financing challenges and struggling to scale at the pace its market opportunities demanded. As complimentary to the AgBait training, Ibom Agro quality assurance and procurement officers have participated in the Training of Trainers (ToT) on cocoa quality management, improving their capacity on both sensory and physical evaluation of cocoa bean, in order to meet international standards.
His experience has also shaped his advice to other agribusinesses seeking finance. He believes that engaging financial institutions early, understanding what differentiates your business, and building the right internal structures for growth are key factors in accessing finance.
He also sees partnership as an important part of the journey. “Everyone talks about the problems, but I have had hands-on experience with what GIZ is doing. In the last two months, four members of our team have received training from GIZ in different capacities. They supported our investment readiness and linked us to the right financial institutions. That has made a real difference to our business.”
From a small farm that could not meet its own market demand to a cocoa business working with 1,500 farmers and accessing ₦700 million in finance, Benson's journey illustrates what can happen when a viable agribusiness is given the tools, connections and support needed to become investment-ready.
For Ibom Agro-Allied Farms, the financing did not simply provide capital. It provided the opportunity to turn an existing market opportunity.
Author: Miracle Ogunbowale, Communications Advisor EU VACE Project