Design a Grain Storage Cooperative for Women Farmers in Benue State

Benue State is called Nigeria's food basket, producing sorghum, maize, and soybeans at scale. Women do the majority of the farming but own almost none of the storage infrastructure. After harvest, most sell immediately because they have nowhere safe to keep grain, flooding local markets and collapsing prices at exactly the wrong moment. Farmer-owned cooperatives exist in Benue, but many are dormant, captured by local politicians, or structured in ways that exclude the women who do most of the work. A new model needs clear governance, transparent record-keeping, and incentives strong enough to keep members engaged between seasons. Design a grain storage cooperative specifically for a cluster of 30 to 50 women farmers in a single local government area (you choose which one, and explain why). The design document should cover: membership eligibility and entry fees, governance structure, how storage fees are set, dispute resolution, and a plan for the first 12 months of operation. Also produce a one-page visual explainer in plain English (and note which local language it should be translated into) that a field officer could walk through with farmers who have low literacy. Good work will show you have looked at what existing cooperatives in Benue or comparable states have got wrong and built around those specific failure points.