Breaking Silos: How Keselash Agricom Is Transforming Nigeria’s Food Systems Through Communication

In Nigeria’s foodsystem, thousands of organisations, institutions and individuals are working to address challenges ranging from food production and market access to soil health, climate change, post-harvest losses and food security.

Yet, despite the volume of work taking place, development communication professional Feyi Adurogbangba believes there is a fundamental challenge that does not receive enough attention: the system is not communicating impact made enough.

Her experience working within the agricultural development space has shown her that valuable knowledge, innovations and lessons often remain within the organisations or projects that generate them. At the same time, different actors can sometimes work on similar problems without knowing what others are doing.

The result, she believes, can be silos, duplication of efforts, fragmented interventions and missed opportunities for collaboration.
It is this conviction that has led her to build Keselash Agricom, a strategic food systems communication and storytelling consultancy with a broader ambition: to use communication to connect people, knowledge and possibilities across the food system.

Its positioning is captured in a simple statement:
“Amplifying voices. Transforming food systems.”

The experience behind the vision
Adurogbangba’s interest in communication and development is rooted in her professional journey.

With a background in development studies and international development, she has worked around agricultural development programmes and initiatives, engaging with farmers, development organisations, government stakeholders, private-sector actors and other players within the food system.

Through this experience, she began to see a recurring pattern.
There was no shortage of good work.
There were farmers developing solutions to real problems, for example Abraham a young farmer championing onion production in Oyo state. Organisations were testing innovations. Researchers were generating evidence as seen with NIHORT and Tomato wine.

Development programmes were producing lessons, fostering improvised livelihoods, Businesses were creating new opportunities. Government institutions catalyzing change.
But much of this knowledge was not travelling far enough.

“Too many good things are happening in our food system that people do not know about, understand or connect with,” Adurogbangba says.

“That made me begin to think differently about communication. What if communication could do more than give an organisation visibility? What if it could help us understand who is doing what, what has already been learned, where the gaps are and where opportunities for collaboration exist?”

That question became part of the thinking behind Keselash Agricom.
Communication as infrastructure for connection

For Adurogbangba, communication is not an activity that comes after the “real work” has been done.
It is part of the work itself.

She sees strategic communication and storytelling as an infrastructure that can help stakeholders share knowledge, identify complementary efforts, build relationships, reduce duplication and make better-informed decisions.

“Sometimes the solution is already there, but the people who need it do not know that it exists,” she explains.
“Sometimes two organisations/projects are addressing the same problem without knowing about each other.
Communication and storytelling can help make those connections.”
This is where she believes Keselash Agricom can occupy a distinctive space.
The consultancy does not see communication simply as publicity. It sees communication as a tool for connection, knowledge exchange and systems change.

Breaking the silos
Nigeria’s food system brings together farmers, researchers, government institutions, development organisations, businesses, financial institutions, processors, marketers, consumers and many others.

Each has a different role, but the connections between them are not always strong.

Adurogbangba believes that stronger communication across these different groups can help create a more coordinated ecosystem.

She envisions a food system where an organisation does not have to start from scratch because another organisation has already tested a similar approach; where lessons from one project inform another; where innovations developed by farmers can reach wider audiences; and where stakeholders can identify opportunities to collaborate instead of unknowingly duplicating one another’s efforts.

“The question is not only, ‘What are we doing?’” she says. “We also need to ask, ‘Who else is doing this? What can we learn from them? What can they learn from us? And where can we work together?’”.

For her, communication can help answer those questions.

Beyond telling success stories
This philosophy also influences how Adurogbangba approaches storytelling.
Agricultural development stories are often presented through statistics, project achievements or narratives of challenges.

While these have their place, she believes the sector needs stories that reveal the people, knowledge, relationships and decisions behind transformation.

For Adurogbangba, an impact story should not simply say that a programme reached 10,000 farmers.

It should explore what changed, why it changed, what was learned, what worked, what did not work and what others can take from the experience.

“That is the kind of storytelling I am interested in,” she says. “Stories that don’t just make people aware, but help them understand, learn and act.” Stories that facilitate change.

Through Keselash Agricom, she wants to help organisations turn their experiences and knowledge into communication assets that can inform stakeholders, attract partnerships and contribute to wider conversations.

What makes Keselash Agricom different
Keselash Agricom is being developed around four interconnected areas: Storytelling for Impact; Knowledge and Insights; Conversations and Connections; and Food Systems Transformation.
Its services include strategic communication, impact stories, documentaries, reports, stakeholder and partner outreach materials, positioning and visibility support, and social media campaigns.

But Adurogbangba says the underlying philosophy is more important than the individual products.

“The product may be a documentary, a report, a campaign or an impact story,” she says. “But the real value is what that communication enables.”

That could mean helping an organisation articulate its value, helping stakeholders discover one another, making knowledge accessible, preserving lessons from a programme or bringing a new perspective into a food systems conversation.
In this sense, Keselash Agricom is not being positioned simply as a communications service provider, but as a strategic partner helping organisations communicate their contribution to a larger system.

Giving the food system a better narrative
Another part of Adurogbangba’s vision is to influence how agriculture and food systems are represented in public conversations.

She believes Nigerian agriculture is often discussed primarily through its problems—food insecurity, low productivity, climate challenges, poverty and inadequate infrastructure.
Those challenges are real, she acknowledges, but they are not the entire story.

“There are people doing remarkable things within our food systems,” she says. “There are farmers innovating, researchers generating knowledge, businesses creating solutions and organisations testing new approaches.

These stories need to be told—not to hide the challenges, but to show what is possible.”

For her, better storytelling can help shift perceptions while giving visibility to people and innovations that deserve wider attention.

A bigger ambition
Adurogbangba’s ambition for Keselash Agricom goes beyond building a successful consultancy.

She envisions it becoming a trusted platform and partner within Nigeria’s food systems ecosystem—one that helps stakeholders communicate better, learn from one another and find opportunities to work together.

She wants Keselash Agricom to contribute to a culture where knowledge travels, innovations are visible, experiences are documented and stakeholders are better connected.

Ultimately, she envisions a food system where organisations do not operate as isolated islands.

“A more connected food system is a more efficient food system,” she says. “If we know what others are doing, we can build on existing work, reduce duplication and direct our resources where they can have greater impact.”

For Adurogbangba, that is the real opportunity presented by communication.
It is not merely about telling better stories.

It is about using stories, knowledge and conversations to create connections that enable better work.

And that is the vision driving Keselash Agricom:
Amplifying voices. Transforming food systems.

The post Breaking Silos: How Keselash Agricom Is Transforming Nigeria’s Food Systems Through Communication appeared first on OPERA NEWS.