The Journey

Before Mbanefo Chinonyelum built an agritech company, his first classroom was his mother’s smallholder broiler farm. She was a teacher and a farmer, and through her he learned that agriculture is not just about raising animals; it is about discipline, risk, patience, and livelihood. Today, he is committed to transforming Nigeria’s livestock value chain.

That early exposure became a calling. He went on to study agriculture at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture and graduated as the best student in his department. But his path was not a straight line. He first gained experience in the oil and gas and hospitality industries, sharpening his business instincts while the pull of farming remained.

Eventually, he returned to agriculture on his own terms. He established a farm in Iseyin, Oyo State, where he reared, processed, and distributed frozen chicken to Lagos. It was here, as a hands-on farmer, that he confronted the realities smallholder farmers face every day.

The Challenge before transforming Nigeria’s Livestock Value Chain

Running his farm exposed Mbanefo to a broken system: fragmented supply chains, poor coordination, limited access to finance, and a deep trust deficit across the livestock value chain. That trust gap was not abstract; it cost him millions of naira in fraud. He soon discovered his experience was not unique; many farmers were losing money, time, and opportunity to the same structural failures.

Instead of accepting the system as it was, he decided to challenge it.

The Achievement

Mbanefo founded Cubeseed, an agritech solution designed to bring coordination to the livestock value chain and close the trust deficit that had cost him and many others so heavily. Cubeseed acts as a digital aggregator, making transactions more transparent, relationships more accountable, and the entire ecosystem more efficient.

That vision earned recognition when Cubeseed won Idea Hub 12.0, a Lagos Innovate programme organized by the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF). Today, Cubeseed is mobilizing broiler farmers in Lagos State with access to finance of up to ₦5 million per farmer at a 9% annual interest rate powered by the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF).

Cubeseed is replicating the model in Lagos, to Oyo, and Ogun states. Pooling resources and partnerships to fulfill a weekly order of 500,000 tons of chicken worth over N2 billion per week.

The Goal

The mission is bigger than one farm or one market. Mbanefo Chinonyelum wants to build a livestock ecosystem where smallholder farmers can access capital, sell with confidence, and grow without being undone by fraud and fragmentation. What began beside his mother’s broiler coop has become a drive to rewire agriculture for the farmers who feed the nation.

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