On Friday, 5th September 2019, I sat on a panel at the Africa Green Revolution Forum to discuss the topic Youth In Agriculture: Showcasing and Scaling Models for Agripreneurship.
The goal of the session was to discover how young agripreneurs were recognizing and taking advantage of opportunities across the agric value chain, challenges they were facing and how young people could make the bold venture into agriculture.
Across the continent, young agripreneurs are recognizing untapped opportunities in the agrifood sector. Yet, ideally, they would be fostered by a supportive ecosystem to progress faster and more successfully along their journey.
The ambition of scaling digitally enabled, environmentally conscious, market-led ventures to deliver jobs and healthy food, while respecting the natural environment, can only be realized through collaborative efforts to educate, support and invest in young talent.
The session among other issues also explored how ecosystem actors can support agripreneurs to scale sustainable solutions through collaborative action.
In addition to myself, 3 other panelists shared their inspiring stories. They were; Ms. Starlin Farah, the Chief Operating Officer of Ecodudu Ltd, an innovative Kenya based company using insect larvae to make fertilizer and animal feed.
There was also Mr. Patrick Ofosu-Agyemang the CEO of AgroInnova, a Ghanaian based startup providing digital solutions to the poultry industry and Ms. Sonita Tossou, the CEO, Fenou Foods, a Benin based food processing company that produces, processes and sells local food produce.
Each agripreneur shared their journey into agripreneurship along with the challenges they faced and how they overcame those challenges.
The key takeaways from this session were as follows:
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In spite of all of the strides that young agripreneurs are making, there are definitely ways that policymakers can make things better for them.
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The success stories of young people currently should be shared to create the desire for more young people to enter into agripreneurship.
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The journey is never easy and many are the challenges that lie along the way.
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Agripreneurs must not work in silos. They must constantly seek out how they can engage with public sector partners to create greater impact.