•L-R: Group Head, Agric Finance and Solid Minerals, Sterling Bank Plc, Dr. Olushola Obikanye; Executive Director, Technical Services, Leadway Assurance, Adetola Adegbayi; Winner of ASA 2023 AgroPitch, Green Republic Farms Limited, Baliqees Salaudeen and Commissioner of Agric and Natural Resources, Plateau state, Samson Bugama, at the Agriculture Summit Africa 2023, in Lagos recently.
Five winners emerged in the grand finale of the 2023 edition of Sterling’s Agriculture Summit Africa.
This year’s edition, which featured a pitch competition called AgroPitch, saw Green Republic Farms Limited crowned the top agroprenuer, walking away with five million naira in grants and an agribusiness entrepreneurship training program from the Lagos Business School.
This year’s summit was sponsored by Sterling Bank, Leadway Assurance, Thrive Agric and Noor Takaful.
Green Republic Farms Limited, a youth and women-led enterprise emerged the overall winner and got N5 million cash prize, and a scholarship to attend the Agribusiness Management Programme of the Lagos Business School (LBS) which provides participants with the individual insight, coaching strategies and leadership skills needed to achieve better decisions and results for their companies.
The remaining agribusinesses which emerged as winners are Eden-Acres Integrated Farm, Duketrah Fisheries, Kernelinc Resources Limited, and OG Capital.
Speaking at this year’s ASA, themed Empowering Innovation: A confluence of Capital, Vision and Agribusiness Enterprise, Group Head for Agriculture & Solid Minerals Finance at Sterling Bank, Dr. Olusola Obikanye, said that this year’s summit has shown that there is huge and yet-to-be-realized potential for innovation in the nation’s agribusiness sector.
Dr. Obikanye continued by saying that “The quality of submissions and presentations have shown a clear path towards investment opportunity for the private sector to fund exponential growth in the sector towards achieving a stable and sustainable food economy for the country, while delivering value to operators and investors alike.”
Also in attendance were the Honorable Commissioners of Agriculture for Plateau and Ekiti states, Samson Bugama and Ebenezer Boluwade, who enjoined entrepreneurs in agribusiness to take risks and turn around the fortunes of the sector and help it achieve its potential.
Conceived by Sterling Bank and now in its sixth year, this year’s Agriculture Summit Africa represents a historic milestone in the summit’s history, which stands as a prominent platform for showcasing promising agro-innovators, aligning with the bank’s unwavering commitment to shaping the forefront of agricultural excellence both within Africa and beyond.
Renowned for its now famous HEART of Sterling strategy; which focuses investments in the Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation; its irreverent brand voice and enviable talent management practices, Sterling has been awarded the Most Innovative Bank of The Year for by BusinessDay, been named the Overall Best Place To Work In Nigeria by the Great Place To Work Institute, and has featured on the prestigious top 100 fastest growing companies in Africa, as published by the globally recognized Financial Times, all in 2023.
