Youth Innovators in Agribusiness
The USAID-supported East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, Syngenta, the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) and the Toyota Kenya Academy have launched the second edition of the Young Innovators in Agribusiness Competition. This follows last year’s successful competition that attracted more than 800 participants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Out of the 35 youth finalists, 10 have gone on to win other prizes in the energy and agribusiness sectors, 10 have expanded and retained their agriculture-related enterprises and 15 are employed or pursuing higher education.
This year’s competition is open to youth in East African Community member states and Ethiopia, Madagascar, Seychelles and Mauritius between the ages of 18 to 35 that have a start-up or small and medium sized enterprise (SMEs) involved in the agricultural value chain. The year-long competition process will involve training and mentorship to produce 60 start-up and 60 SMEs. Training will be carried out at the Toyota Kenya Academy in Nairobi, Kenya prior to the Agribusiness Innovation and Trade Fair in Nairobi pitching event to investors set for May 2016.
Six youth innovators were selected to present their enterprises at the 2015 African Green Revolution Forum as part of the Young Innovators in Agribusiness Competition: Action Leaders Panel. They shared their stories, provided a background on their businesses, spoke about their ambitions for the future and had the opportunity to pose questions to representatives from USAID, Syngenta and The MasterCard Foundation.
It is important to note that these young innovators are university graduates, with either a bachelor’s or master’s degree. According to African Economic Outlook, approximately 58 percent of university graduates in low-income African countries such as Tanzania, Ethiopia and Madagascar are unemployed or underemployed. These young entrepreneurs worked hard to establish their own enterprises and are also creating jobs for other young people.
Here are their inspiring stories:
Noah Ssempijja, 29, from Uganda has set up his business named Young Initiative for Community Empowerment (YICE). He has a far-reaching mission of providing quality agro-finance services to rural youth and women farmers that help advance and improve their agricultural productivity. Today, YICE has reached 532 rural women and youth with bundled agricultural information (AgInfo) and finance services that contribute to their food security and incomes.
Abrhame Endrias Butta, 29, from Ethiopia is currently a lecturer at the Arsi University in the department of Business Management. Abrhame is the owner of the Green Agro Mechanization, a firm that offers rental services for modern agricultural machinery, equipment and tools, including equipment for ploughing, harrowing, row seeding, harvesting, processing and transporting. He has 13 full-time and temporary employees.
Catherine Mwikali Mbondo, 35, from Kenya has set up a business called Proactive Merit currently trading in raw honey and neem clay facial scrub masks. She adds value to agricultural produce and markets them as natural products. Catherine envisions her projects spreading out to the wider Eastern region of Kenya and improving livelihoods the process.
Vava Angwenyi, 34, from Kenya founded the social enterprise Vava Coffee, with a group of passionate individuals and farmers working towards one goal: using coffee to empower communities. Vava Coffee envisions contributing to better, future prospects for local communities and the coffee industry as a whole. Vava Coffee not only works with smallholder farmers in various coffee growing regions within Kenya, but also sells coffee gift bags made by groups of women in the informal settlements surrounding Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
Pascal Furaha, 35, from Rwanda is the owner of PEBEC Ltd, a chili business that he established in 2012 with an aim of employing more than 5,000 farmers grouped in co-operatives and generates foreign currency for the country as an export project. PEBEC Ltd is already selling chili in global markets, specifically in Spain and India.
Nyiringabo Ignace, 34, from Rwanda is the Chief Executive Officer of Winwin Agritech. The business supplies farmers with improved varieties of bean, maize and soybean seeds. It also provides farmers with new technologies with the vision to Rwanda becomes more food secure. Nyiringabo holds a master’s degree in finance and accounting from Mount Kenya University, Rwanda and has received training in seed production, seed processing and seed business management.
Applications to participate in the competition for youth-owned small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is open until October 30, 2015. For application details please visit Young Innovators in Agribusiness
