Growing agribusiness entrepreneurs in East Africa

After a lot of paperwork, the Agripreneurship Alliance is now registered as an official international NGO in Uganda. We have also signed a Partnership Agreement with the CURAD Agribusiness Incubator on the outskirts of Kampala “to work together in line with the objectives of CURAD, which aims to support innovative local entrepreneurs and start-up companies operating in the agricultural sector through public-private collaborations and incubation programs”. CURAD has been awarded  the prize for the Best Agribusiness Incubator in Africa several times. We will be setting up an office at the most recent CURAD facility that includes pilot processing equipment for horticultural products that is available for agripreneurs to use for development and early-stage production. In June we are in Kampala to interview for 2 Ugandan staff members.

The 2021-2022 cohort of students following the Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness training is drawing to a close. Eight Universities are participating from Uganda, Kenya, Somaliland, and DR Congo with 221 students registered - 90 Female & 131 Male (41%/59%). We are delighted that for the first time we have one cohort with more female participants than male – this is at the Ugandan Christian University. The business plans are coming in and are being reviewed by our expert team in Switzerland and the USA.  See some testimonies from previous students  Charlotte and Hugues  in the link below. 

The trip to Uganda in June gave the opportunity to meet in person some of the young agripreneurs who have followed our training - which was great! One of them Steven B. has a wine business using local fruit including pineapples, bananas, and mango. Steven’s dream is to start making wine from grapes so we brought him some vine cuttings from Switzerland and will be following closely if they can adapt to the Ugandan climatic conditions. Steven was at the first National Agriculture Education Exhibition in Jinja this month (see photo above) and had the opportunity to share his passion for agriprocessing with many groups of school children. The theme of the Exhibition was Farming for a Prosperous Future. He commented on the change in mindset at exhibitions, from just wanting to taste products, to a desire to be trained in agriculture and agriprocessing. So, there are good signs for the future!

Links:

• Young agripreneurs provided with knowledge and opportunities