Press Release. The 2018 CURAD & Swisscontact National Agribusiness Innovation Challenge & CURAD Agribusiness Agri-park project. Kampala, 12 July 2018

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1 Press Release Kampala, 12 July 2018 The 2018 CURAD & Swisscontact National Agribusiness Innovation Challenge & The National Agribusiness Challenge was first launched in May 2014 at CURAD Head Office, Kabanyolo. There were more than 100 applications with 50 reaching the shortlist stage. The Awards Ceremony took place in October 2014 and was presided over by the Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives. Building on the success of the Challenges, the 2018 Challenge aims again to tap into the potential for youth employment in agribusiness in Uganda. CURAD, Swisscontact and partners have put forward over UGX 400,000,000 to support young agri-entrepreurs through this year s challenge. It will involve a two-stage application process. At the first stage, entrants must submit their online or hand-delivered applications before Friday, 31 August This will be followed by a review of all applications, with a short-list to emerge by 20 August Those shortlisted will present their business case to a panel of judges at the Judging Event on Saturday, 9 September The top three business cases in each of the nine categories will be selected and the category winners announced at the Final Awards Ceremony on Friday, 28 September 2018.

2 The Agribusiness Sector and Youth in Uganda The agribusiness sector in Uganda includes the entire chain of activities, including production, processing, transportation and marketing. The importance of this sector has grown significantly as agricultural development strategies have shifted from a purely production-oriented approach to a broader systems-based approach involving agri-food chain coordination, value creation and institutional setting under which chains operate. Evidence however, reveals that youth engagement in agriculture is declining amidst rising youth unemployment. The services and industrial sectors have not created enough jobs for the burgeoning youth labour force, despite growing at a considerably fast rate. This has implications for food security, unemployment and under-employment, and may undermine government efforts to drive economic growth through agriculture. Rapid adoption of appropriate inputs, technologies and profitable and reliable markets would drive the youth from subsistence farming and contribute to a more robust, demand-driven and export-oriented agribusiness sector. To-date, the informal system controls more than 80% of the market and is highly unregulated and characterised by illicit trade. The export sector is also poorly structured and uncoordinated with small and under-capitalised companies that cannot develop meaningful business partnerships with agri-entrepreneurs. The volume and quality of exports is still low and cannot compete favourably in either regional or international markets. Uganda has the potential to expand its production and export of staple foods and processed products to the region. Exploiting this potential would increase employment opportunities along several value chains and help to reduce poverty within the country. This would then showcase the dominance of the agricultural sector in the country s efforts to reduce poverty and attain economic growth in the immediate years.

3 Emerging Opportunities and Challenges for Young People in the Agribusiness Sector Despite the increasing opportunities that come with the growth of the private sector in Uganda, the majority of young people still don t find opportunities to tap into this labour market. Most of the youths entering the labour market have no formal training and only about 20% of annual graduates from academic and technical training schools find employment. This is coupled with constraints such as a lack of creativity and innovativeness, limited technical and entrepreneurial skills, limited market information and access, and inadequate financial services. Uganda has one of the fastest population growth rates at around 3.3%, and this itself is the principal driver for the increase in consumption of crops in Uganda. Agri-business holds one of the biggest potentials for youth employment in the different value chains that are attractive to youths, such as poultry, apiary and horticulture, which includes vegetables, tree fruits, aquaculture and staple food crops like maize, soya beans and oil seeds. The country has emerging opportunities for youths to invest both on-farm and off-farm, building on youth innovation and creativity to develop a reliable and sustainable supply of agribusiness products. While Uganda traditionally exported raw commodities, the government is advocating for foreign investment into agricultural processing in order to increase its export earnings. Most Ugandan farmers continue to produce raw commodities such as coffee, tea, cotton, maize, beans, bananas, cocoa, livestock and fish. While staples such as bananas, tea, maize, and beans have strong domestic demand, cash crops such as coffee and spices generate strong revenue in export markets. There is a rapidly growing export market for coffee, fish, processed dairy products, fruits and vegetables. Ugandan producers often find it difficult to meet the sanitary and phytosanitary standards required to export goods to Europe, Asia and the United States. Increasingly, the local, regional and global markets have created a pull factor on local agricultural production, thus causing a shift from subsistence to market-oriented production. One would think this would create greater opportunity for youth employment, however the majority are constrained by limitations in technology, financial services, knowledge and skills, information and other factors. In addition, the majority of young people engaged in agriculture do not have much business sense. There is limited analysis in the selection of value chains based on their comparative advantage, potential for high growth and youth impact, demonstrated market demand, ability to achieve quick wins or potential for value addition. There are also limited opportunities relating to processing, packaging, storage, marketing, and distribution and support functions such as testing, transport, and technology/equipment provision. This is coupled with limited access to practical technological innovations such as the use of mobile phones to obtain access to market information and financial transactions, and affordable and appropriate financing mechanisms to trigger investment and reliable supply.

4 The National Agribusiness Challenge 2018 The 2018 National Agribusiness Challenge is spearheaded by CURAD and Swisscontact, in partnership with the private sector (mainly agribusiness companies, financial institutions, insurance companies, development organisations and other agencies devoted to private sector agribusiness development). The Challenge aims to lead young agribusiness entrepreneurs on a path to discovery, growth and development. It focuses on stimulating innovation, competitiveness and creativity among young entrepreneurs to generate unique but realistic business ideas, as well strengthening and promoting existing enterprises with high social and economic benefits. In this way, CURAD and Swisscontact are contributing to a more vibrant and job-creating agricultural economy. The key characteristic of the Challenge is that the awards will support young entrepreneurs who already have technical, business and financial literacy skills to foster business growth. The fund will also promote the participation of young people in the selection process, as well as peer-to-peer mentoring by other successful young entrepreneurs. The goal is to provide winning businesses with incubation support, human resources, capacity-building and start-up or expansion capital. Competing young entrepreneurs should also demonstrate the capacity to co-finance the business idea or plan to achieve higher benefits. This will enable them to tap into existing agribusiness opportunities in the agriculture sector to innovate and scale-up products and services in the market with greater economies of scale. Specifically, the challenge will: Identify, and promote the different ideas, skills, talents, innovations and research products that have the potential to cause a remarkable sectoral evolution at both local and inter-national levels; Promote direct engagement between the young inventors and innovators and potential funders, donors and business networks at the regional, national and international level; Stimulate creative thinking, innovation and talent development and steer the change of mindset of the youths regionally, nationally and internationally. The target beneficiaries are individual young entrepreneurs (both in and out of school) between the ages of 18 and 35 years in the agribusiness sector across the country. The challenge targets purely enterprising young people who will: Present highly innovative and competitive business ideas with the potential for scaling up and providing more social and economic benefits; Present existing businesses with great potential for growth and scalability; Present business ideas that address the needs of the market in the agricultural sector and beyond; Strongly promote youth employability, engagement and potential to contribute to their community. CURAD and Swisscontact envisage: a) identifying innovative agribusiness ideas and turning them into sustainable enterprises; b) generating additional jobs in the agribusiness sector; c) increasing the engagement of young people contributing to local and regional economic growth; and d) generating sustainable and reliable income.

5 CURAD is a public-private partnership initiative promoted by Makerere University, the National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises Limited (NUCAFE), National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA). CURAD is a leading agribusiness incubator in Africa voted the best in Africa in 2015, 2016, 2017 by the African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN). It has started and natured over 130 agri enterprises over the last 4 years. CURAD is also launching an Agribusiness and Agripark project supported by abi TRUST Uganda in Namanve Incubation facility for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Agroprocessing and more specifically value addition to a wide range of agricultural products in the country has the potential to create jobs and economic growth of both urban and rural areas. CURAD is a key entity in agribusiness development in the country with expertise to exploit the potential of agribusinesses using the incubation model with a focus on coffee, fruit and horticultural value chains. Contact Details Apollo Segawa Executive Director, CURAD Tel: , curad.curad@gmail.com, segawaapollo@gmail.com Tania Haïdara Country Director, Swisscontact Tel: tania.haidara@swisscontact.org Swisscontact is a business-oriented independent foundation for international development cooperation, which promotes economic, social and environmental development and supports interventions that enable people to successfully integrate into local commercial life, thereby opening up opportunities for them to improve their living conditions as a result of their own efforts. In Uganda, Swisscontact is running a portfolio of 4 projects focusing on agribusiness with a target of 35,000 youth and farmers Central, Eastern and Western Uganda as well 250,000 households in Northern Uganda. The projects include; the Inclusive Market Uganda project (IMU) addressing both the supply and demand side of the cocoa and bee keeping sector respectively; the Local Skills Development for Youth (LSDY) and the NU-TEC five year, DFID funded programme in Northern Uganda led by Palladium Group and the U-Learn project which is $ 11.2 million ($ 5.6 million for Uganda), 5 years intervention in partnership with Master-card Foundation implemented in Uganda and Tanzania targeting 15,000 young people in agribusiness, construction and hospitality. The goal of this project is to raise over 15,000 young people sustainably out of poverty in Uganda by increasing their competitiveness in the job market and improving their selfemployment opportunities This National agribusiness challenge 2018 is also part of the initiatives within the U-Learn project to promote youth innovation and creativity.