Obinrin Stories by Obinrin Farms: putting Nigerian women in agriculture on the map, one story at a time.
Bukola Owokodu, founder and CEO of Damsy Beverages and Food Hub Ltd.
In 2018, Bukola Owokodu’s family was living in Abuja and could not find clean, stone-free tapioca in the local markets. That frustration became a business.
Today, she is the Founder and CEO of Damsy Beverages and Food Hub Ltd, operating as Damsy Tapioca Factory in Ikorodu, Lagos. The company grows cassava, processes it in its own factory and sells tapioca products to customers, cafés and restaurants across Nigeria and beyond.
Damsy grows its own cassava and partners directly with the cooperative farming networks at the Voice of Nigeria Farm in Ikorodu. In the factory, the roots become:
Nothing goes to waste. Damsy turns processing fibres and dried cassava peels into livestock feed for local farmers.
Tapioca flakes, starch and boba pearls from Damsy.
Bukola saw a gap in food quality and started a small trading venture from her home kitchen in February 2019, processing tapioca flakes. The business grew step by step:
Her biggest early challenge was inconsistent raw material and post-harvest spoilage. Cassava starts to deteriorate within 48 hours of harvest. Buying from open-market middlemen often meant poor-quality roots that ruined processing yields and disrupted production.
Her solution was to take control of the supply chain. Damsy began planting its own cassava and set up a direct sourcing partnership with the Voice of Nigeria Farm. That stabilised supply, gave the company full farm-to-factory traceability and protected it from open-market price shocks.
Inside the Damsy Tapioca Factory.
Bukola is proud of taking Damsy from a home kitchen to a fully integrated company that handles everything from cultivation to manufacturing. Today, Damsy:
“Start with what you have. Agriculture is not only about cutlass and farm. If you can process it, package it and solve a real food problem, you are in agriculture.
Find one crop, master it, brand it well and be consistent. You don’t need to do everything. I chose cassava and I stayed with cassava, from flakes to flour to boba pearls.
Don’t wait till you have it all figured out. Don’t wait for big capital or a big factory. I started with flakes in my home kitchen. That small start is now Damsy Beverages and Food Hub Ltd with its own factory.
Your little start is valid. Start now.”
When Obinrin Farms Started, We searched Google for women doing well in agriculture in Nigeria, and We kept finding the same few faces. Years later, not much has changed.
Yet women are doing wonders across our agriculture: farming, processing, packaging, trading and selling at the roadside. Obinrin Stories publishes their journeys so anyone can find them with a simple search, and so the next young woman who wants to start knows it’s possible.
Obinrin means woman.
Know a woman in agriculture whose story should be told? Send us a DM on Instagram @obinrinfarms.
Farming Isn’t Dirty.
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