CANWYF is building iTONA AFRICA — the first community-owned farmer verification and market access programme in Ekiti State, Nigeria. We are at the pilot stage, with real data, a working platform, and a clear path to scale. This page outlines the case for your investment.
Africa's 600 million smallholder farmers produce 80% of the continent's food, yet the vast majority are invisible to formal financial systems. They have no verified identity, no documented income history, no access to credit or insurance — and no way to sell to institutional buyers who require traceability. CANWYF is addressing this gap with iTONA AFRICA: a community-owned programme that gives each farmer a verified credential, backed by traditional authority and confirmed by GPS-recorded field visits.
We are in active pilot in Araromi Ekiti, Ijero LGA, Ekiti State — enrolling farmers, conducting verified visits, and building the data infrastructure that unlocks market access, crop insurance, and institutional lending. Our model is community-governed, technology-enabled, and designed from the ground up for rural Nigeria — meaning it works with intermittent connectivity, local languages, and traditional leadership structures rather than against them. We are seeking grant funding, impact investment, and programme partnerships to scale the pilot to 500 farmers by end of 2026 and replicate the model across Ekiti State by 2027.
See Funding Details →Nigeria's 35 million smallholder farmers feed the country, yet the formal economy treats them as invisible. Without documented identity, land tenure, or income records, they are excluded from every system designed to support agricultural growth — banking, insurance, government subsidies, export certification, and institutional markets. The consequence is not just poverty — it is permanent structural fragility for Nigeria's food supply.
Existing interventions have largely failed to close this gap because they rely on government databases that are outdated, self-reported farmer registers that cannot be independently verified, or technology platforms that are inaccessible to farmers without smartphones, electricity, or internet. The problem requires a different architecture.
iTONA AFRICA combines trained field coordinators, GPS-recorded farm visits, community governance, and a mobile platform to create a verified farmer identity system that works entirely within existing community structures. There is no requirement for smartphones, internet connectivity, or government documentation from the farmer. The programme builds trust from the community up — using traditional authority as the verification backbone.
Most agricultural platforms fail in rural Nigeria because they are designed for the city and retrofitted for the village. iTONA AFRICA was built the other way around.
We are in active pilot. The numbers are small because we have not yet received the investment needed to scale. What we have is proof that the system works end-to-end — enrollment, verification, sealing, and market linkage — in a real community with real farmers.
Every stage of the iTONA process produces a measurable outcome at the farmer level. The table below shows how funding flows to specific results.
| Funding Stage | Cost Per Farmer | Direct Outcome | Downstream Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enrollment & Verification | ₦15,000 (~$10) | Farmer has GPS-confirmed identity on iTONA platform | Eligible for credit checks, subsidy targeting, buyer verification |
| Community Sealing | ₦10,000 (~$7) | Farmer receives Oba Seal — tradeable credential | Eligible for AgroMarket, AgroShield, institutional lending |
| Market Linkage | ₦0 (fee-funded) | First market sale facilitated with verified buyer | 30–40% improvement in farmgate price through direct sale |
| AgroShield Enrolment | ₦2,000–₦7,500/yr | Farmer covered for crop loss due to climate or pest | Income stability; ability to replant after losses |
| Full Programme Cost | ~₦25,000 (~$17) | Fully verified, sealed, market-linked, insured farmer | Documented income history enabling formal credit access |
At scale, each additional ₦1,000,000 (~$666) invested onboards approximately 40 farmers into the complete iTONA programme. Our 2026 target of 500 farmers requires approximately ₦12.5 million (~$8,300) in programme costs, excluding platform operations, coordinator salaries, and community governance.
We are seeking funding across three tiers, each representing a meaningful expansion of the programme. All amounts are indicative of what is needed to achieve specific outcomes — not arbitrary targets.
CANWYF is structured as an NGO. However, iTONA AFRICA generates programme revenue that reduces dependence on grant funding over time. For impact investors seeking a return, the Fund a Harvest model offers a direct financial instrument.
CANWYF is a CAC Incorporated Trustee — Nigeria's formal NGO structure with legal fiduciary obligations. Our governance is designed to give donors and investors the confidence that funds are managed responsibly.
We are not asking for a bet on a concept. The platform is live. The farmers are enrolled. The Seal Council is meeting. The data is real and independently verifiable. We are asking for the funding to take what is working at 10 farmers and make it work for 10,000.