Themba Dlamini would be the first to admit that starting his own business has been far from easy. But since taking the bold step of buying the farm on which he once worked, the young Swazi farmer has watched it grow and seen it win a contract to supply baby corn, beans, zucchini and sugar snap peas to a major South African supermarket chain. He has also managed to tap European markets and his business now employs more than 100 people. One of Dlamini’s staff is Gugu Happiness Maphanga, who works in the pack house. “I’m the first in my family to have a job”, she said.
In economic circles, there is widespread agreement that more business-oriented agriculture – and the development of small agri-businesses in particular – is an important driver of food security, export expansion and economic growth and development. Dlamini is living proof of that. He is one of a small but growing band of people known as agripreneurs – rural-based individuals who have set up their own businesses in an effort to make a better income and carve a brighter future.

Some agripreneurs have become business owners through necessity, due to the decline in traditional commodity markets and the struggle to maintain a market share as farming has become more commercial. The end of fixed prices guaranteed by marketing boards has prompted growing numbers of producers to re-think their careers and look for more efficient ways of making a living from the land. The response may vary widely in terms of both scale and scope. One approach is diversification. Barbadian farmer Charles Herbert moved out of sugar when export prices on the EU market began falling. He now grows 24 ha of fruit, 12 ha of yam and other crops and 28 ha of vegetables. He has branched out into hydroponics and has secured a contract to supply a cruise line. In parts of Kenya, farmers are moving from crops and traditional livestock into crocodile rearing, selling meat to hotels and processing companies and making additional income from the skins.

Outside the box

Other producers have taken the path of adding value, through processing, packaging or clever marketing. Eldon Serieux moved out of farming bananas in St Lucia to set up his own business making jams and jellies from ginger, mango, banana, golden apple, guava and passion fruit. His company Frootsy Foods is now an established brand in St Lucia and is also proving a success in export markets. In Zambia’s north-western region, rice farmer Chibbonta Chilala has set up a cottage processing plant. He packages the polished rice into 1 kg, 2 kg and 25 kg bags and sells it from a small shop.

Themba Dlamini from Swaziland with his baby vegetables

Specialty and niche products represent a promising sector. Some agripreneurs have cashed in on a local product, either in its traditional form or by adding a new twist. Cocoa farmer Duane Dove from Tobago has combined aged rum with chocolate from top quality Caribbean cocoa to tempt consumer palates in Europe. Others have launched services in the agrifood sector, often involving ICTs. In Trinidad, young couple Rachel Renee and David Thomas set up a successful online vegetable delivery service, after David’s initial forays into primary agriculture proved unsuccessful. In St Lucia, Luvette Thomas-Louisy heads a vibrant agricultural and environmental consultancy service which designed an ICT-based leaf spot disease management programme for the banana industry.

Being a successful agripreneur is often a case of thinking outside the box, spotting opportunities where others see doom. Although liberalisation and new trade rules have led to a decline in some traditional sectors, they may also offer opportunities. With the right judgement and input, there is scope for a value chain approach – instead of simply growing tomatoes, farmers may do better by also processing them into tomato sauces. In Dominica, where bananas have long been a major crop, young entrepreneur Darwin Telemaque has filled a market gap, delivering ripened ready-to-eat bananas to supermarkets, hotels and cruise ship operators.

Re-branding agriculture

A workshop organised by CTA and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in 2008 brought together existing and potential agripreneurs, academics, business experts and policy makers. Business ideas that emerged included snack foods such as fried plantains and yam flakes, dehydrated foods, frozen niche foods such as pigeon peas, cassava and mangoes, organic compost-making and rearing small animals such as rabbits, birds and tropical fish to sell as pets. It also explored opportunities for non-traditional agriculture, such as agro-tourism and culinary tourism, herbal preparations and cosmetics and agricultural services such as leasing machinery and landscaping. There are calls for agripreneurship to shift from its current largely informal status into the formal business sector, with a more structured system that particularly targets the young.


Guyanese women making cassava bread

When it works, agripreneurship can help re-brand agriculture as an attractive career, especially for youth. In the eyes of some young people, it is one thing ploughing fields to plant potatoes, but quite another being the head of a small business that produces potato snacks. Marcia Brandon, executive director of the Barbados Business Youth Trust, calls for a new image for the sector, especially for youth: “Agriculture has to be seen as a business, with opportunities to make money and create wealth”, she said. Mentoring young agripreneurs has been found to be a successful way of increasing the success rate of start-ups. In Senegal, a business incubator programme launched by the Cheikh Anta Diop University University, the French government and French research institute IRD is offering advice and support to people wanting to start up their own businesses in West Africa. The Agribusiness Society (ABS), run by young Caribbean agripreneurs, offers advice to would-be business owners. “If young people see examples of successful entrepreneurs and the benefits that come with it, they will be naturally be drawn to the sector”, said ABS official Rhonda Sandy.

The cultural environment also plays a role. In some ACP countries, having a salaried job is seen as a more worthy goal than embarking on a risky path as a self-employed entrepreneur. This attitude is reflected in guidance from parents and schools, and business leaders stress the importance of more help from the education sector. In St Lucia, a venture to turn unemployed youngsters into makers of handmade paper from banana waste initially failed, not because the market was not strong enough, but because, in the words of project leader Christine Wilson, “the young people did not understand the concept of entrepreneurship. They wanted to be paid a salary.”

Caribbean business consultant Steve Maximay calls for more youth programmes to be developed to stimulate young agripreneurs in areas such as nutraceuticals, exotic spices, agro service units specialising in marketing, quality packaging and agro-processing services and training in provision of professional services such as certification, traceability and pest management.

A helping hand

Becoming an agripreneur is not a career path to be undertaken lightly. Entrepreneurs have to be prepared to take calculated risks. They also need to be creative, innovative and resourceful, be ready to put in long hours of hard work, cope with stress, and weather the bleak periods as well as the good ones. Good agricultural training is essential. But so too is training in business skills, marketing and ICTs. Agripreneurs need to know about costing and pricing, break-even analysis, production planning, marketing, book-keeping, contracts and financing. An agripreneur needs to have a clear idea of market forces. What do consumers really want, and what will they pay a premium for?


In St Lucia, the consultancy service run by Luvette Louisy has designed an ICT management programme for banana disease.

One of the first hurdles facing an entrepreneur is often selling the business plan to the financier. However, credit alone is not enough, and the right help can make all the difference. Themba Dlamini’s efforts to run his agribusiness in Swaziland seemed doomed before NGO TechnoServe came to the rescue by brokering a loan, organising crop insurance and securing GlobalGAP certification to enable him to penetrate international markets. “I couldn’t have done it alone”, he acknowledges.

An EU-funded project in Cameroon and DR Congo is helping rural people to develop sustainable micro-enterprises based on forest products such as gum arabic (Acacia spp.), African plum (Dacryodes edulis), African cherry (Prunus africana) and Bush mango (Irvingia spp.). The Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) fund was launched in October 2010 to link the private sector’s financial discipline to the public sector’s scale and reach in developing countries. US$1 million (€736,000) has already been invested in eight different ventures.

At the end of the day, it is also worth remembering that agripreneurs do not have to do it alone. Joining with others to form an effective value chain has proved a winning formula for dasheen producers in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

With help from the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN), they have built up a significant export business involving a network of growers, washers, graders and packers. The result has been a major success, with new markets found in the UK and mainland Europe and producers earning up to 300% more than when each of them worked alone.

Reference: Spore 151, February-March 2011