Sh250m up for grabs in agricultural value chain competition

By David Ssempijja

Entrepreneurs involved in agricultural value chain systems stand to be beneficiaries of a sh250m bounty, courtesy of the Agribusiness Innovations Challenge spearheaded by the Consortium for enhancing University Responsiveness to Agribusiness Development (CURAD).

According to the body managing director Appolo Segawa, the challenge presents opportunities to contenders to present their business cases for investment support in commercialising or expanding businesses to promote the growth of food processing and exports.

 “This challenge will provide winning businesses with incubation support and start-up or expansion capital to enable entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector to thrive and benefit the Ugandan people and economy,” he reporters this week..

The challenge was launched recently by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) director for Capacity Strengthening, Dr. Irene Annor-Frempong, during an event held at CURAD’s  head office at Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute, Kabanyolo.

The competition, according to Segawa, will see 27 enterprises winning in nine categories, all courtesy of sponsors like Microsoft Uganda, Uganda Telecom, Deloitte, FinAfrica, Uganda Coffee Development Authority among others.

The applications are under review, a panel of judges at the final judging award event on July 2 will select the top three business cases in each category moving in line with CURAD philosophy.

CURAD is a public-private partnership initiative promoted by Makerere University, the National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises Limited (NUCAFE), and National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), the University of Copenhagen (UC) and NIRAS International.

The body is one of the six agri-business incubators in Africa supported by the FARA under the Universities, Business Research and Agricultural Innovations with funding from DANIDA.