Yield / season
+33%
Season income
+150%
Price per bag
25%
Ask Cynthia Dung Dashung what her secret is these days, and she grins without hesitation.
“Oh, my business, it’s flourishing.”
She employs twelve workers now during farming season. Her yields have climbed to forty bags of Irish potatoes annually. Her seasonal income has more than doubled. She’s planning to expand from one to two hectares and add dry-season production.
But here’s what matters most to Cynthia: other women in her farmers’ group are watching. They’re asking questions. They’re adopting her methods. They’re beginning to see their farms differently.
“In our world of today, women usually believe that most of the income is supposed to be from the men, but it shouldn’t be so. We women have so much power to earn, just like the men, even more.”
She says this with the confidence of someone who has proven it on her own land.
Eight years ago, Cynthia was farming alongside her mother on one hectare of inherited land in Farin Lamba, Nigeria.
Married with two children, she grew Irish potatoes as her primary income crop, part of Plateau State’s potato production that supplies urban markets across the north. Two seasons a year. Maize and soybeans on the side.
Fifteen bags of potatoes per season. Sold at the village market to whoever showed up first at whatever price they offered.
No records. No storage. No leverage. No idea whether she was making money or just staying busy.
Cynthia was feeding communities and supplying markets, but capturing almost none of the value her work created. The pattern repeated every season: plant, harvest, sell to local traders who set prices she couldn’t negotiate. Harvest time meant distress sales, take the first offer or watch produce spoil. She gave away some harvest without tracking it, treating generosity and business as separate worlds.
She worked hard. Her farm didn’t work for her.
The shift started with business training connected to the Africa Growth Fund through Chui Ventures portfolio company PricePally.
Proper planning. Systematic record-keeping. Cost tracking.
“The training taught me quite a lot of things: proper planning, record keeping. Even those produce I dashed out, they are now included in my records.”
She learned generosity and business could coexist, but only if she knew what she had, what it cost, and what it was worth.
Cynthia accessed working capital for improved seeds, fertilizer, and crop protection inputs. Her yields climbed to twenty bags per season, forty annually, nearly triple her previous output. Her seasonal income more than doubled. She repaid the loan on time, building credit history for larger financing as she scales.
Then came market access through aggregation platforms at Barkin Ladi Market.
“I realize that we can go directly to companies and market to them directly with a good bargaining power to get a reasonable pricing for our produce.”
Farming alone meant taking whatever the first trader offered. Farming together meant leverage. Fair prices. Direct access to formal buyers instead of watching margins disappear to middlemen.
Cynthia went from price-taker to market actor.
Her farm now creates twelve jobs during season, up from eight to ten.
As she expands to two hectares and adds dry-season production, that number grows. Income for other families while she scales.
Within her farmers’ group, Cynthia shares what she learned. Other women are adopting her methods, managing farms as businesses. Her success is proof the value chain can work differently when producers get access to capital and market infrastructure.
When a woman who farmed eight years without knowing her profit can suddenly track costs, access fair markets, and build a flourishing business, other women notice.
In the next twelve months, her is to double from one to two hectares, add dry-season farming, hire more labor. She needs larger financing and storage infrastructure to reduce post-harvest losses and control market timing.
What changed everything? Understanding her farm’s profitability through record-keeping. The shift from inherited labor to managed enterprise with potential she could unlock.
Today, Cynthia is an entrepreneur, an employer and a mentor. Her business shows what happens when impact capital builds productive enterprises and repositions farmers within agricultural value chains.
Other women in her group are watching. Learning, calculating what might be possible on their land. Beginning to believe income doesn’t have to come from men. That food systems can work for producers, not just extract from them.
Cynthia proved it on one hectare. Now she’s scaling to two. And the women around her are doing the math on theirs.
