Bringing lean to Nigeria's smallholder farmers

If we consider that one in three people around the world makes a living working on farms and that 70% of the food we consume globally is produced on units of 10 acres or less, we quickly realize that the potential of bringing lean thinking to smallholder farmers is immense. In fact, feeding the world's growing population will require us to adopt innovative approaches to agriculture and to change the narrative that currently exists that small-scale farming is an uncompetitive system and a backward model we should move away from.

We are finally seeing a shift in this kind of thinking (partly because of the pandemic, which showed that smallholder farmers tend to be more resilient and adaptable). So why not help them develop and become lean enterprises so that we can change agriculture once and for all?

In this article, we will talk about an inspiring project we have been involved in, which is a great example of how lean can be applied to small farming operations. USAID, the United States government agency responsible for administering foreign aid, has been interested in applying lean thinking to agricultural projects in Nigeria – in its “Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services Activity” initiative – to increase productivity in the sector. Winrock, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington DC and Little Rock, Arkansas, is the implementing partner, and the Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) is a funding partner. USAID owns the lean work we describe below:

Lean concepts are often assumed to be purely Japanese, but in fact every culture around the world has a tradition of efficiency. No culture naturally tolerates waste, especially indigenous ones. All over the world, we see a “lean ethic” that we try to channel to improve the lives of Nigerian smallholder farmers.

Conventional thinking vs. lean thinking

Our project to improve outcomes for Nigeria's smallholder farmers was based on three key ideas on which conventional thinking and lean thinking differ.

First, conventional thinking believes that more is more and that, to increase agricultural output, you need to increase inputs. Lean thinking, on the other hand, believes that less is more and that, to achieve productivity gains, you need to strive to reduce waste and improve value-adding work. In fact, lean teaches us that in every enterprise we can observe there are two types of activities: those that add value and those that generate waste. The idea of focusing on cutting waste to increase productivity works well with smallholder farmers, who do not have many resources and tend to be risk-averse.

With this in mind, the first thing to do is to analyze costs and waste in your farming operation. These opportunities should be seized before farmers need to take on any risks or new investments.

Second, conventional thinking follows an agronomist-centered approach. In other words, it believes in bringing in outside experts to tell farmers what to do. According to this kind of thinking, research institutions are the most common source of improvement and innovation ideas. They share the ideal agronomic way (Good Agronomic Practices) of producing a given crop and offer a way to carry it out. Lean thinking, by contrast, teaches us that those who are putting the seeds in the ground are in the best position to identify the pain points in the growing process and suggest improvement ideas. Farmers know the work and the waste in the value stream like no one else. They are experienced market players and make logical business decisions based on complex, highly particular and constantly changing environmental, economic and social conditions. We believe their input should be the starting point, not an afterthought.

Finally, conventional thinking tends to move quickly to solutions, even for complex, large-scale problems such as poverty. Lean, on the other hand, forces us to slow down and gain a deep understanding of the current state before any decision is made. The solution to global poverty does not lie in sweeping generalizations or quick fixes, but in specific solutions to specific problems – in getting the details right. The right small changes can have a big impact.

Lean on Nigeria's farms

So how do these concepts apply to Nigerian agriculture? In this country of 200 million inhabitants, 70% of the population works on farms (to give you an idea, this percentage in the United States is below 2%), and yet the country is food insecure. There is incredible potential to apply lean ideas and principles here, especially considering that demand for food produced in Nigeria is growing.

USAID's goal for the Extension Activity is to reach three hundred million dollars in sales for about two million smallholder farmers in Nigeria by 2025. This is a truly unique project, because the most common approach of development agencies is to add costs for producers (better genetics, more expensive seeds, sophisticated technology and so on), whereas here we are looking at what will actually reduce cost and waste for the farmer.

For this project, we divided the work into logical steps. First, we identified the customer. We asked ourselves who the paying customer is, who the farmers and buyers are in the Main Market Channel, the segment that moves the largest amount of output for the largest number of producers, and who, in the process, makes the decisions about buying or not buying.

Once we identified who the real customers are, we created field teams and sent them to talk to these customers and ask them three simple questions:

The idea is to make sure that what is being produced on the farms matches what paying customers say they want.

Next, we worked on a map of the value-creating process – what steps are farmers currently performing to create and deliver products to the customer? To do this, once again, we went to the gemba – the farmers – to observe the process in action. We gathered a great deal of information that enabled USAID and the Extension Activity to identify the best opportunities for impact.

Finally, we identified the interventions that would remove most of the waste and, at the same time, create more value for customers at the lowest cost to producers. Most of the ideas for these most impactful practices (MIPs) came straight from the farmers who grow the crops regularly.

Some examples from the field

Here we will share some practical examples to show how the observation we conducted at the gemba helped us truly understand the situation and thus arrive at the best possible countermeasures.

First, let's talk about aquaculture. We looked at what it takes to produce 1,000 catfish on an average smallholder farm in Nigeria. Through a series of interviews conducted at fish markets, we understood what makes a high-value catfish stand out in the customer's eyes (people prefer large fish, with big heads and a dark color) and compared this with what was actually happening and being produced on the farms.

Catfish is very popular in Nigeria. Although fish is huge in the country and is rapidly growing in popularity as a low-cost source of protein, more than half of the catfish consumed in the country is imported. Being a fish, catfish does not need much space: it can be raised in your own backyard, even in an urban setting.

Our conversations with farmers gave us a better understanding of each step of the process (for example, what it takes to drill a well and create a pond) and some of the key decisions farmers need to make (should I dig a hole in the ground or build concrete or tarpaulin tanks?). Behind these choices there are cultural, economic and social determinants that we must understand if we really want to help farmers make the most of their resources.

We also examined fish stocking and management to understand where the costs were in these steps. In our future-state maps, we presented the improvement ideas the farmers came up with – ranging from building tanks with water inlets and outlets to ensure cleaner water, to relying on biometric feeding to reduce the amount of feed used, or stocking less fragile juveniles instead of delicate fingerlings to reduce mortality and raise bigger fish.

For another product – rice –, we heard repeatedly from the women we interviewed (women account for 75% of the agricultural workforce in Nigeria) that harvesting is very laborious and time-consuming. Threshing, winnowing and bagging rice by hand takes 20 days of work, and this costs N76,000.00 per hectare, mainly to hire workers (this kind of information can only be acquired at the gemba; you won't find it in books). Threshing and harvesting alone account for one third of the cost of growing rice in Nigeria today, according to the farmers we interviewed: it is clear that, if we want to increase rice production, this is an improvement opportunity we need to pursue.

Our investigation revealed that the cost of threshing with a rented thresher is N15,000.00 per hectare, with much higher returns (1 ton per day versus 300 kilos). However, there are few threshers available in Nigeria at the moment. The solution we identified together with the farmers, therefore, was to work with local welders to manufacture and supply threshers and with local businesses to offer threshing services.

The farmer-led approach we have described in this article is helping Nigerian smallholders improve their livelihoods and expand their businesses. We believe that these local improvement initiatives, although seemingly small, can help us lay the groundwork for developing a more agile, efficient and sustainable global food system in the future.