In depth story

A risky business no more

Increasing investments in agriculture changes minds and turns heads in Benin

02/04/2025

A more energetic woman, you will never meet. Edith Mireille Deguenon, who goes by Mireille, walks around the grounds of her business with quick steps filled with purpose and enthusiasm. Her past is full of experiences, her future full of plans. You can tell just by the way she looks around that she has a vision for Oasis des Enfants, the agribusiness she began to address malnutrition in children.

Her step in this direction was logical. Having gone through all her studies and becoming a registered nurse, assigned time and again to paediatrics, she saw her share of children with extended bellies, stunting or otherwise suffering from the effects of malnourishment.

Mireille recalls, “It was when I was in paediatrics that I caught the bug of wanting to heal and nourish children.”

After Mireille got married and moved to Cotonou, she left her nursing profession, but took on studies in Public Health, receiving her diploma in children’s health and nutrition in 2010. She then set up a nursery for children with illnesses, but in 2012, she decided to address malnutrition head on by making fortified flour. A combination of maize, soy, peanut and/or millet, the flour helps families meet the nutritional requirements of their children.

In Benin, between nine and ten percent of the population suffers from food insecurity and about 34 percent of children under five years old are affected by chronic malnutrition, a condition often beginning with malnourished mothers.

Mireille, well-versed in nutrition science, decided that beyond just producing flour at her renovated factory in Abomey-Calavi, she wants Oasis des Enfants to be a space where pregnant, breastfeeding or new mothers can also come and learn about nutrition through cooking demonstrations and informational sessions.

Mireille sought financing to bring her plans to life, collaborating with Hervé Kassa, a facilitator trained by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to use an innovative tool called RuralInvest

RuralInvest, developed and managed by FAO’s Investment Centre, is a software that helps farmers and entrepreneurs transform business data, like agricultural yields, into structured business plans. But at its heart, RuralInvest is more than just a software; it is a methodology and toolkit of training and support, enabling connections between actors along the value chain in agrifood systems.

In Benin, through the Agricultural Development and Market Access Support (PADAAM) project, RuralInvest is becoming an increasingly important instrument to support agriculture investments, showing significant results in facilitating access to financing from banks and decentralized financial systems.

Financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), PADAAM showcases how FAO’s technical expertise and IFAD’s financial support (USD 60.3 million out of a total of USD 106.41 million), in partnership with public and private stakeholders, drives impactful large-scale investments. PADAAM is set to reach over 55 000 rural households.

Hervé is one of over 300 trained RuralInvest experts in Benin, who have in turn, supported over 22 000 Beninese farmers and agripreneurs, like Mireille, access financing through viable business plans.

With Hervé’s guidance, Mireille’s proposal was submitted to the PADAAM decision committee, where approved projects receive initial grants that serve as catalysts to attract additional funding.

With her business plan approved, Mireille is working on expanding her production and introducing a new product alongside her two existing flour types. She intends to hire more women, especially new mothers, further supporting the local rural economy.

Since the introduction of RuralInvest into the PADAAM project in 2020, 590 business plans have been validated by the project. 78 percent of these have already received funds from PADAAM and national financing institutions.

“Access to credit is the core of rural development in reality because the rural world is limited, financially and economically. When there is land, labour and state structures that offer various forms of support, but there is no funding that comes to assist, it becomes complicated… So, financing really comes as a solution,” says Cyrille Hounsou, Director General of Pebco Bethesda, a microfinance institution which partners with PADAAM and offers co-financing for approved business plans.

Mireille has no limits to her dreams for the future, a future that is getting more and more concrete with increased access to finance.

The name of her company, Oasis des Enfants, symbolizes Mireille’s vision:

“You know when you pass through the desert, there is dust, there is heat, there is no water, there are no people, it is empty… But at some point, you can find water with shrubs. This is what we call an oasis. That's what inspired me. I said my company will be like this water... When they come here, they will be healthy. They will have vitality, and they will have growth,” Mireille says.

Investment-centred thinking

For the agripreneurs, RuralInvest helps them turn their visions into investment-ready business plans. For investors like banks or microfinancing institutions, the tool helps them understand the reality of agricultural businesses and reduce perceived risks in lending, facilitating access to tailored financing.

“The big problem for producers and processors is the issue of adapted financing. It is not that the resources are not available. The resources are available, but these resources must meet the needs or meet the specificities of the activities,” says Sikirou Alabi Oloulotan, Coordinator of ProCaR, a government programme coordinating PADAAM and other IFAD-funded activities in the country.

Together with the use of RuralInvest, the PADAAM project is helping financial institutions understand the specific needs of agricultural producers and processors, such as different loan terms or tailored payment schemes based on the seasonality and specificities of agricultural activities. Because agricultural producers often need to wait for the harvest to be paid, they are often less able to put a large down-payment upfront. These are all areas in which FAO is working with financial institutions to help adapt these loans to the realities of agriculture.

In a nutshell, RuralInvest helps farmers and financial institutions speak the same language, explains Hervé.

It is also helping change the mind of investors that agriculture is too risky of a business. Olivier Tonato, National Cereal Agribusiness Specialist for PADAAM, comments that RuralInvest “gives confidence back to the banks and microfinance institutions and allows them to get it out of their heads that the agricultural sector is risky.”

Like with any business, risks just need to be mitigated. With more information on this sector and with business plans that help translate results into financing options, financial institutions are more willing to work with small agripreneurs and give them the credit they need to grow.

“Producers today are able to purchase equipment that allow their company to achieve a certain performance because RuralInvest, allows visibility of investments over five, ten, 20 years or more... So today, we easily make a correlation between investments and results, which allows to easily assess the performance of the company,” describes Tonato.

The basics

Alongside from financing, a challenge to Mireille’s growth is a basic but foundational one: the raw materials. These basics are not a given in agriculture, where production is highly influenced by outside forces, such as changes in climate, rain fall, pests, diseases and global market shocks. These influences can change not only the amount that can be produced but also the price, which can be a big challenge for small agripreneurs.

“The price [of corn kernels] changes periodically and this year, it is terrible. Corn has become very expensive,” Mireille notes. “We must negotiate with the producers to save some of their stock and sell it to us bit by bit when the price is stable.”

RuralInvest helps structure and formalize the business relationships that PADAAM facilitates between producers and processors and traders.

The Director of Cabinet of the Ministry of Agriculture, Aguemon Dossa, says, “There is the issue of business links because when you produce and you do not sell, you will not continue to produce. So from this point of view, it is extremely interesting that PADAAM works on the development of business links to address the issues of production.”

For producers of maize, rice and cassava, these stable business relationships are essential. Adele Gogoe, Secretary of the UCCPMA maize cooperative, highlights that accessing markets was a significant barrier until PADAAM connected her cooperative with Oasis des Enfants, enabling them to sell their maize more effectively.

Adele hopes for more match-making opportunities like this to expand market access and obtain financing for maize production. “Producers need financial support—it’s challenging to farm without it.”

Investments to grow

On Eloi Hounkponnou’s farm outside the town of Grand Popo in western Benin, these business connections are crystal clear. With the rice fields on one side of the road and the processing factory on the other, Eloi and local producers work together toward a final product: to grow organic rice - a crop he has known since his childhood.

As a boy, Eloi would go to the rice fields in the morning and in the evening, to school.

After finishing high school, he went to work at the port to earn more money for his family. It was only years later, when he was diagnosed with diabetes, that Eloi returned to farming, determined to produce food without chemicals.

“I want to give what is healthy to the population,” Eloi says about his decision to make organic rice.

The start was hard. Eloi says, “We harvested rice with difficulty, I mean with great difficulty. We husked the rice and even had to go as far as 250 kilometres from here to sort the rice.”

His breakthrough came when a local agency connected him to the PADAAM project and FAO's RuralInvest methodology. With a facilitator’s help, Eloi mapped his production over three years and identified a strong potential to increase production.

Equipped with a clear business plan, PADAAM granted Eloi’s business, Viva Matekpo, funds to purchase essential equipment—a sorter, calibrator and dryer. These tools have cut down the long trips out of Grand Popo to use machines and boosted their production from 270 tonnes to 350 tonnes of rice.

But what Eloi is most enthralled by is that RuralInvest also brought visibility and credibility to Viva Matekpo, opening new funding opportunities and helping him to secure a loan of 10 million CFA (USD 17 000) from microfinance institution, CLCAM (Caisse Locale de Credit Agricole Mutuel), to further expansion. “With that [RuralInvest], we can open other doors,” he says. “It is not something limited.”

Eloi aims to produce 1 000 tonnes of rice and become the region’s top organic rice distributor. Eloi says that the project has launched them on the path and now it’s up to them.

FAO Representative in Benin, Isaias Angue Obama, underscores RuralInvest’s role in agricultural transformation, noting that, “This type of intervention is necessary: the preparation of a business plan, preparing to ask for financial support, this aspect is very important… there is a financial independence that the actors must find.”

“Eloi feels confident in pursuing more funding on his own. “We see something consistent, real, and tangible,” he concludes.

Making connections

In the fields of Zinvié, farmers from the Sedjlo cooperative undertake the arduous task of casava harvesting and preparing the fields for the next season. Casava, like maize and rice, is another vital crop to food security in Benin. It is particularly important thanks to its ability to grow all year-long.

The tractor Sedjlo acquired from their funded RuralInvest business plan helps them immensely in this work, as do the crop tricycles they use to carry the casava to its buyers, Alitech.

Another PADAAM connection, Sedjlo and Alitech, an agricultural processor, have grown their businesses together, relying on one another to do so and with RuralInvest ensuring that the business plan of Alitech (the buyer) matches that of Sedjlo (the producer).

“Our challenge was to increase our capacity to consume more raw material from the producers,” says Daniel Narcisse Savi, Alitech’s RuralInvest focal point.

For this Alitech sought the help of RuralInvest to create a fundable business plan for acquiring more equipment, in particular, dryers. With more equipment, Alitech processes more, hires more people, buys more cassava from Sedjlo who in turn grows more and earns more for their product.

With more productive alliances like these supported, Benin’s agricultural sector increases opportunities in the agricultural sector.

Making agriculture profitable

Agriculture is a crucial part of Benin’s economy. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, it is the primary source of employment for about 75 percent of the population. Most are small-scale farmers and producers working on less than two hectares of land. Growing agribusinesses and production and revenues is part of the solution.

“Poverty is first and foremost rural, according to the numbers. It is most striking in rural areas… so one challenge of agriculture today is how to make it so that producers better live off of their agricultural activities. Meaning, improving revenues,” reflects Dossa.

FAO is working with Benin’s Ministry of Agriculture to institutionalize the use of RuralInvest in the country through large-scale investment. Attaining a critical mass of businesses using this methodology would make an impact on the overall agriculture sector and livelihoods of farmers and agricultural producers, supporting businesses to expand independently.

“If tomorrow, the PADAAM project were to end, all this teaching, all this training, all this application must remain in such a way that all these different actors can function by themselves, whether at the level of production, value chain or demand,” expresses FAO Representative Obama.

Building capacity changes mindsets and breeds empowerment. That’s the future of Beninese agriculture in which FAO is investing.

The FAO Investment Centre created RuralInvest more than 20 years ago but rolled out an updated and even more user-friendly version in 2022. RuralInvest is now used in 15 countries, with 1 500 people trained in using the tool and more than 2 000 business plans developed, accounting for a total financing of more than USD 60 million.

This is part of a series of stories to mark the 60th anniversary of the FAO Investment Centre, highlighting decades of partnerships, initiatives and investments that have shaped agrifood systems. Explore how the FAO Investment Centre continues to drive agricultural investment and finance solutions, transforming lives globally.