My name is Beckie Nakabugo, I studied Interior design in Kenya however I always had passion for agriculture. I am 32 years old and I am the coordinator of the Uganda Youth Agripreneurs (UYA) from Mukono, Uganda.
An elder leased us 5 acres of farm land for 5 years where we cultivate native and exotic vegetables. Our first target was the traditional marketing system where we sold our produce to the traders in the wee hours of the day. This system presented many challenges, harvesting in the evening and the following early morning delivering to the markets (around 3am!) so that freshness is not lost along the chain and we are also there to compete with other farmers! However, we realized that despite a lot of effort was put in; our benefits were very small as there are many other producers in the market.
Faced by these challenges, we decided to target the higher end market in order to realize profits. The first questions popped up: who could be the high end market customers??? Who has money and willingness to buy high quality vegetables? After some discussions we decided to target the staff of organizations and/or companies.
We developed an online form (http://goo.gl/forms/wmYuPcvGcR) through which we interface with our clients. The idea is simple as figure one below illustrates: the customers fill and submit the form with their order before Thursday at 4pm (1), UYA prepare the order (2) and on Friday before 4pm we deliver the order straight to your table in your office (3), giving the customer the pleasure to enjoy the hassle-free fresh and healthy vegetables (4).
The first two weeks were good. However the customers told us that if they only buy what we produce they will still have to go to the market. So if we wanted to maintain them as customers we needed to work toward the objective of providing enough variety for them avoiding going to the market. Therefore, more items were needed in our ordering form!
The community empowerment and UYA as facilitator!
So, next step was and is to involve our community in this agribusiness. We are currently sourcing some of the products from the farming community nearby but working with the objective to organize farmer groups that produce other vegetables and agri-products so they can supply us on weekly basis with high quality products. This is not an easy task as farmers groups are not very organize, the produce is based on rainfed agriculture and sometimes they lack knowledge on soil fertility management and on how to protect the corps against pests and diseases.
The environmental innovation and creation of opportunities for other age brackets!
Recently, Uganda passed a law that banned the plastic bags. There is however still a big struggle with this challenge in the community. In this era of climate change, UYA did not want to do ‘business as usual’ but we are seeking to do business in an environmental friendly manner! Therefore we are collaborating with Bukadde Magezi Women’s group for old and widow women and they make ecofriendly baskets out of natural papyrus fibers that we sell to our customers, this help us to reduce packaging providing and ecofriendly solution while at the same time helping our community members.
We want to expand! Let’s make some profit in Agriculture
We are sure this project will succeed in Kampala (Uganda), our orders has been increasing since we started, nowadays we are supplying in 2 offices, but we want to expand. However it is not easy, we face some challenges: (i) Not enough constant supply from our farm and the farmers in our community, (ii) lack of knowledge on ICT and marketing strategies, (iii) lack of funds to brand and advertise our products (iv) limitation on rainfed agriculture on open field and (v) transport constrains.
So with the money of this grant we will – timeframe of 6 months:
- Provide trainings to our farmers in our community to achieve constant quality supply: $700
- Best agronomics practices
- Detection on pests and diseases and how to control them
- Post-harvest handling
- For the UYA group – $2,500
- To get some trainings to improve on:
- Agronomic knowledge – Smart climate technologies
- Developing knowledge on ICT s
- Marketing skills
- Simple irrigation system for part of our farm
- Getting some funds for labor in our farm
- To get some trainings to improve on:
- Branding and advertising $1,500
- Communication
- Transport $300
With this grant we will improve our project, create job opportunities while improving the system within our farming community. Ask me as many questions as you might have!
Blogpost and picture submitted by Beckie Nakabugo (Uganda) – ugandayouthagripreneurs[at]gmail.com
The content, structure and grammar is at the discretion of the author only.
This post is published as proposal #92 of “YAP” – our “Youth Agripreneur Project”.
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Interesting initiative.
Dear Perez, I am happy you like our project! Feel free to ask more questions!
Working with youth is a such a great idea! Good luck for this proposal!
Thank you very much Kessy! We,the youth, we need an opportunity to be able to make a leaving, and we are lucky as we found our passion, agriculture and our idea to move forward!
great initiative nd eye opening. good work.godwin
Thank you so much Godwin for your comment
Great initiative. I hope you guys have enough support for it to succeed!
Thank you so much Roger! We also hope so! Please share this link to all your friends! The more comments the more chances to go through the next phase
Congratulations for such good project. I wish it is succesful!
Thank you Montserrat
Good Proposal
Thank you Kelvin, do you have any initiative like this one in Nigeria?
Fantastic proposal. it would be great to also understand your customer most preferred or most demanded items this would help you invest more or target those products. this is a nice project
Thank you Moses for your comment, we are working on it! At the beginning we did a small market research but now that we have our own customers, we realize that their preferences are a bit different. For example, our customers love spinach, and that’s why this season we grown them in our farm as well!
Great idea! Good luck!
Thanks Mandy for your comment!
Dear Beckie, I’m very impressed with the work you have done so far and with this project proposal. I hope it gets selected as finalist, and you and the youth group have the chance to go to Johannesburg and defend it! Good luck!
Thank you Mariola! We are working very hard to move this project forward!
Well done Beckie, this is a great initiative.
Are you going to train all farmers in your community?
Thank you Sylvia for your comment. The idea is to start small but to grow big. We are planning to star with the farmers close to us first. We want to pass some knowledge of better agriculture practise on what they grow but also to introduce other high value vegetables to them.
Very cool!!! I will sign up for this. It is a great idea! We have similar programs in the US for home delivery of vegetables and they work very well it seems. Also, you can present at our Green Drinks social networking event in May to promote this idea and get more customers and support!
Thank you Jessica for your comment! I am happy you like our idea! We will be very happy to present our project in the Green Drinks social networking event!
Great initiative! How many farmers in your community are involved in your agribusiness?
Thanks Monica for your comment! It change a bit every week but around 10-15. If we expand, as we are planing we will need many more to be able to provide this service to more offices
Hey, I think it is a very good idea to improve both the producers and the final consumers.
The first ones could focus on the production and get an improvement in their quality of live. The seconds could recieve a better service.
Great idea!
Thanks Josep Anton, I think that this project takes into consideration many aspects! First the youth but not only as we are working close with our community farmers and non farmers and as you well said we are try to provide quality products to our customers! We are working very hard!
Thanks Beckie for the brilliant initiative. With all those ideas put together, you can actually achieve more especially with the climate smart agriculture to ensure continuous supply and meet market demands. All the best
Thank you Kennedy for your comment! Irrigation is a big challenge and more nowadays with Climate Change being so present here, we no longer know when the rainy seasons start! So our idea is to get open field irrigation to at least have part of our garden producing all year around!
Good innovation Beckie! I am particularly impressed with the community involvement in supplying vegetables and eco-friendly baskets.
Thanks Immaculate for your comment! We take very seriously the need of take care of the environment. We are trying our best to reduce the plastic use.
Great idea!
Thank you Pepito for your comment!
This is very good proposal
Thanks Justus! We are trying our best!
Wow! Great to know of such an initiative. It’s very impressive and let us know if we can be of any assistance in driving this agenda further forward. Good luck!
Dear Victor, thank you so much for your encouragement! We are always happy to work or share ideas with other farmers, researchers, private sector, university… the more we learn from each other better outcomes we will get!
Thanks this is very interesting, VEDCO and I,Crespo support you and Am happy you have gone this far
Thank you Crespo for your support! We are also in touch with some farmers from VEDCO and we know that you are doing a great job in our district!!
Great Initiative. Very well elaborated!
Thank you Hanna for your comment and support!
Great innovation circumventing the traffic jam
Thanks Moses for your comment! That’s also one of our selling marketing points! Traffic can be so bad in Kampala! So you can avoid it for going to the market as you will get your fresh vegetables deliver to you!
Indeed very great idea you deserve the grant to implement these activities and i believe this could be another platform to showcase the opportunities the youth have at their disposal, the success of this project would redefine the attitude of youth towards agriculture. Brilliant indeed.All the best
This is one of the bests proposals! The money of this grant would definitely be well invested. Not only for the improvement of your production quality and the potential future job opportunities, but also for the environment, through your eco-friendly initiatives. Very nice, good luck!
Thank you Marie very much for your comment
It’s a great work!!
Thanks Aida! we are trying our best!
It’s a interesting project!, good luck!
Thank you Marti for your comment!
It is very interesting project, good initiative!!
Thank you very much Maria! We are working hard to succeed!
It’s a very interesting project, good luck!
Thank you Josep Maria for your comment! We believe luck is important but more important is our hard work to succeed!
Interesting iniciative!!! Good job and good luck!!!
Dear Glorieta! Thank you very much for your comment!
Really interessting iniciative!!! Good job and good luck!!!
Great idea!
Thanks Nuria, we see that if we don’t innovate we will not succeed
Creat idea!
En sembla un bon projecta, pot beneficiar a moltíssima gent, que tinguis sort
Waw! I like this project very much. I would like living in Uganda in order to consume your fresh produce. I hope you had good luck, you deserve it.
Dear Montse thank you for your comment. Who know we might export in the future so if we do so we will let you know 🙂
Sembla un molt bon projecta agrícola, cal també la confiança dels clients, que tinguis molta sort
It seems a very good agricultural project, we also need the trust of customers, you have luck
Dear jmartipedragosa, thank you for your comment. Trust of our customers is very important! We have been working not to lose it as some times we have some challenges!
A project very excited that luck
Dear MAngels, thank you very much for your comment!
It’s perfecte! I wish I lived in Uganda to eat your fresh vegetables.
Fantastic! I wish I lived in Uganda to eat your fresh vegetables.
Nice proposal. This will definitely solve the marketing challenges of most local farmers.
Dear Tabitha, thank you very much for your comment. Farmers in our community express the challenges they have with market, specially when in the rainy season there is too much produce out and the prices drop.
Wow… Great initiative and we need it as country.
Dear Mable, thank you very much for your comment.
i believe this is a very inspiring project we should go green world
Dear Patricia! Thank you very much for your comment. We need to be ecofriendly whil we do great business in agriculture!
cool idear
Thank you Joshua
It’s great !!!!!!
Thank you risirisum
Fantastic projecte !!
Thank you Teresa to take time to read and comment our project
Beckie very well with this project, because the greens are so good at the time of the month to reach customers
Great idea..looking forward to learning more nd even taking part in the project.Godwin
Thanks Godwin! Any youth with energy and hard working is welcome to the group!
Could you tell me how many kilometres around you do you supply?
For now we are delivering from Mukono to Kampala (Naguru) in two building offices, but we are planning to expand.
Good job!!! Congratulations.
Thank you so much Antonio to take some minutes of our time to read our project and to leave a comment
Such an idea for the youth it’s great keep on going who is near give a hand…. congratulations for such encouragement…
Brilliant initiative
Good luck!!!!
Thank you so much Ferran! We will work hard to succeed!
Amazing job!! It’s a very good idea.
Dear Isabel, thanks to take time to read our project and comment on it!
Great initiative! I like the idea of your online forms but I have a question: Are planning to create a website? maybe that could help as we could see the products and your facilities as well as order online!?
Thanks for such a great comment entorrat. We are thinking which is the best option if a blog or a web. But we sure need to start working on it. We need to communicate to the world and internet is a great tool to do so.
Uaauu! It’s a great iniciative!! It sounds really interesting! Till now, how do you get to reach to everybody? It has to be very dificult! I love the idea to involve so many people and local groups! Congratulations!
Dear Laia, thank you so much for your comment. It is hard at the beginning as we need the email of the costumer. Nowadays when we arrive to the office where we deliver new people see us with the vegetables and they ask to join. we also get more customers when our customers talk to their friends and colleagues.
A very interesting initiative, I hope you succeed!
Thank you so much Ester to take time to read and comment in our project
That’s awsom, keep going like this. You will help a lot of people.
Thanks Joan! We will keep working hard!!
Great Idea, How many farmers (Youth) are involved in the production and marketing of these vegetables?
Our group is small, we are around 10. We are know recruiting more members as we have lot of work and few hands!! We are also in contact with other youth groups like the Slow Food Youth Network!
A great initiative to kick unemployment and poverty out of Uganda
Thanks Jake! We also think that this project if it grows as plan we can create lot of unemployment specially within the youth!
Dear Becky,
Its agood initiative that keeps the youth busy and active while at the same time earning a living
May God richly bless this project
kind regards
Ruthie
Dear Ruthie,
Thank you for taking time to read and comment our project. We are indeed very busy and full of ideas and energy to work hard to move this project forward.
I am conviced. If I had the $5000, I would give it to you. I feel bad when young Ugandans cry about jobs yet the potential in agriculture is not even half way exploited. Go and make it even bigger whether you win the fund or not. Wish you success.
Thank you so much Christopher for your comment. We are passionate about agriculture and we think that we can make a living out of it! Many youth want to but they don’t know why. We are lucky we have many partners and many ideas to move forward!
I’m lucky enough to be in one of the offices to which Beckie and her group delivers. What a great service! And I have been impressed with the enthusiasm of the team, willingness to listen to the customer and respond to suggestions, not to mention the quality of vegetables supplied. What I love is that some of my shopping is done online and supplied to the office before I leave on Friday. And I love even more is that these youth are showing initiative, doing a great job AND making jobs!
Thank you so much Anna-Marie! We are working very hard to always improve our service and we are happy you are happy about our products! We will keep working hard to improve and add more products and to give you a great service!! See you next Friday 🙂
Beckie, every Friday I look forward to buying your fresh supplies. Your are very innovative and hardworking. Thanks. The online orders and the recipes you send to us are very much appreciated too. Keep it up. You are the young people our nation yarns for.
Dear Rachel, thank you so much to be such a good customer and also to take time to comment in our project. We love you like the healthy vegetables recipes that we send every week!
Hello Beckie, this is a very interesting proposal. Good luck
Dear Maria thank you so much to take some time to read and comment our project!
Fantastic innovation, this is what Africa need thumb up for you.
Thank you so much Akinyele! We are working hard to bring innovations in agriculture
Very original and with great potential
Thank you very much Thomas for your comment!
It is really interesting to see how things unfold.
Thank you Francis for your comment!
This is an innovative idea. We are already benefiting form this service at the door steps of our offices
Dear Ben, thank you so much to take time to read and comment on our proposal!
For real this a good idea it saves time for those who spend most of their day in office and have no time to buy from open market.
Thank you so much Denis for your comment! It is true that our customers have little time to go to the market and that help us to develop further these ideas.
You inspired me Beckie,
Congratulation UYA.
Thank you Mbaraka Salum for your comment
As long as you’ve the passion and are willing to work hard, you’ll have everything in this world.
Go girl, love this already.
Dear Vivian, thank you so much for your comment. We will keeping working hard!!
Great initiative! The sky is the limit for you guys considering the progress! Best wishes.
Dear Edidah, thank you so much for taking time to read and leave a comment
The Uganda Youth Agripenuers (UYA) is the answer to the challenges of climate change and growing youth unemployment affecting many developing countries including Uganda. You are an inspiration.
Thank you very much Dennis for your comment! We think more jobs can be created out of agriculture and we hope our initiative can really help.
wonderful, Very interesting. i need some vegetables delivered if possible, my address is plot 15 East Naguru in kampala..all the best
Thanks John, now that yo in Kampala I am kindly requesting you to submit in. Order form before Thursday evening vegetables will be at our service always.
Many thanks John! We will contact you if you are interested in receiving vegetables 🙂
Wow! It is fantastic project to do. I would like to know and learn more about it. All the best Ms.Beckie
Thanks Veronica for your comment! If you want to know more please contact us! ugandayouthagripreneurs@gmail.com
That is my UYA!! Great initiative Beckie, more good luck dears.
Thanks Carol! Working hard to succeed!
Nice ide all the best, Becky
Thanks mariam!
Brilliant idea i must say all the best my dear!
Nice one UYA,hope you can send me vegetables in Nigeria,Borno state.
Thanks Mercy! Who knows! Maybe in the future we can export hehehe
Nice one UYA,hope you can send me vegetables in Nigeria,Borno state.All
Thanks Mercy,we would love to have this project expand to Bornu states in Nigeria which I know can happen. Now you are going to be the first ambassador to exercise it in Nigeria with the Youth from Bornu state.
Wonderful Beckie. Keep it up and all the best.
Thanks Margaret! We will keeping working really hard!
Good initiative
Thanks Margert
Great innovation Beckie. The idea will definately be most welcome in the various upcoming organised communities/ housing Estates especialy if you can meet the required supplies. It means reduced market congestion and traffic jam. The introduction of the busket is good for the invironment, reminds me of the
Kikapu busket which was replaced by polyethlen bags.
Good luck.
Seppie.
Thanks sepie,I am sure this project will create lots of opportunities.
Dear Seppie, thank you so much for your comment! We have plans to expand and to reach many other offices. Let’s work hard and let’s try to succeed!
Great innovation. Thanks guys. Am happy to see that youths work hard to find solutions to great Farming challenges from within. This is the way to go.
Dear Edie, thank you to take time to read and write a comment!
Hi Becky, that’s a great initiative. A quick question, how do you think young Agripreneurs like yourself contribute to or affect the country’s economy as a whole?
Dear Joseph we hope to create more employment within the agriculture sector. At the same time we are providing knowledge to many farmers in our community. That’s is also improtant to improve the economy as the more modern farming they learn the bigger will be their production and therefore our commercial farmers will grow bigger.
great initiative Becky, Agriculture is the way to go and the only way youth can be preoccupied instead of being on the streets looking for jobs. i like the idea & it shows Uganda is moving forward. Bigups!!!!!!
Dear Hadijah than you very much for your comment! We see agriculture as business! we belive we can live out of agriculture!!
Interesting innovation Becky! I love the ecofriendly bags and yes it needs to be branded… Hoping you cab win the grant and be able to brand your products and/or produce
Thank you Allenisfine for your comment! The branding part is still very poor in our project. If we win this grant we will work hard to brand and improve our marketing skills.
Youth engagement in agriculture is the key to overcoming the rampant unemployment affecting many communities. I believe UYA is a step in the right direction.
Thanks Dennis for your comment
That’s a great initiative to reach out to people who may not have time to hustle in the market. I would very much love to have such vegetables fresh from the garden. Keep it up
Dear Ivan, thank you very much for taking time to read and comment our project
Thanks for this innovative approach!