Agri11 - UniBrain

Opportunities for agribusiness in African agriculture

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SVCDC - KenyaIDPA - UgandaCURAD - UgandaCAF - MaliAgBIT - Zambia CCLEARr - Ghana

through the Universities, Business and Research in Agricultural

Innovation (UniBRAIN)

• a pan-African initiative supported by Denmark

Wide scale investment in agribusiness and agro-industry in Africa is presently constrained by: Human and institutional capacity deficits

African universities are not sufficiently geared to meet the needs of industry

Graduates often cannot find employment while many small businesses lack staff with the education and skills needed to drive innovation

Essentially the relationship between the demands of the private sector and what universities teach is too weak

Nowhere are the these deficiencies more critical than in agriculture, Africa’s dominant industry

However, studies show that when university graduates do business they create more jobs than those without university education


Background to UniBRAIN

UniBRAIN will break the barriers and foster collaboration between universities, business and research to create cultures and environments that will:

• value, encourage and enable innovation

• produce graduates who are problem solvers

• who are potential entrepreneurs

• especially women and youths

UniBRAIN will establish aagribusiness incubators as

organizations for accelerating the creation of successful

enterprises by providing them with a comprehensive and

integrated range of support, including incubator space,

business support services and clustering and networking

opportunities


Purpose of UniBRAIN

UniBRAIN is a pan-African initiative supported by Denmark

UniBRAIN’s development objective is:

to contribute to enabling African countries to create jobs and raise incomes through sustainable agribusiness development

UniBRAIN’s Immediate Objective is:to enable universities, business and agricultural research institutions to commercialise agricultural technologies and produce graduates with entrepreneurial and business skills through agribusiness incubator partnerships


UniBRAIN’s objectives

UniBRAIN’s objective will be realised by:

Output #1: Commercialisation of agribusiness innovations supported and promoted

Output #2: Agribusiness graduates with the potential to become efficient entrepreneurs produced

by tertiary educational institutions

Output #3: UniBRAIN’s innovative outputs, experiences and practices shared and up-scaled


UniBRAIN’s outputs

UniBRAIN Partners

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) with the Sub Regional Organisations (SROs):

The Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA)

The Conseil Ouest et Centre Africain pour la Recherche et le Développement Agricoles/the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD)

Centre for Coordinating Agricultural Research and Development in Southern Africa (CCARDESA)

The African Network for Agriculture, Agro forestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE)

The Pan African Agribusiness and Agro Industry Consortium (PanAAC)

The Agribusiness Incubator Initiative of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ABI-ICRISAT)


UniBRAIN Agribusiness Innovation Incubator Consortia

1. The Consortium for enhancing University Responsiveness to Agribusiness Development (UniBRAIN-CURAD) focusing on plantation cash crops; Specific value chain: Coffee

2. The Incubation and Diversification of Banana Products for Agribusiness (UniBRAIN-IDBPA) focusing on Smallholder staple food and cash crops; Specific value chain: Banana

3. The Sorghum Value Chain Development Consortium (UniBRAIN-SVCDC) focusing on smallholder dry land food grains; Specific value chain: Sorghum


UniBRAIN Agribusiness Innovation Incubator Consortia

4. The Creating Competitive Livestock-bias Entrepreneurs in Agribusiness (UniBRAIN-CCLEAr) focusing on Smallholder livestock; Specific value chain: Livestock

5. The Innovative Centre for Agro-forestry (UniBRAIN-CAF) focusing on agro-forestry products; Specific value chains: non-timber forestry products, cereals and fruits

6. The Agri-Business Incubation Trust (UniBRAIN-AgBIT) focusing on tropical fruit; Specific value chain: Mango


UniBRAIN CAF

UniBRAIN CCLEAR

UniBRAIN AgBIT

UniBRAIN SVCDCUniBRAIN IDBPA

UniBRAIN CURAD

UniBRAINAgribusiness incubators


Why and how will African universities link with agribusiness

UniBRAIN will support universities, businesses and research institutions to establish agribusiness incubators, which will provide:

• facilitation for creating competitive agribusinesses through technology development and commercialisation

• handholding services starting from business conceptualization to implementation and scaling up

• support for realising business concepts from university faculty and graduates, researchers and agribusinesses

• consultancy services to agribusiness

• help in accessing financing for SMEs and start-ups approaching impact investors and social capitalists

Opportunities for agribusiness in African agriculture Functions of the Agribusiness Innovation Incubators

Example Incubator Client Categories and Services

Start Up Growth Expansion MatureNetworking

(domestic and International)

Technologically capable, Productivity driven and Globally

competitive

Assistance in Brand

Development

Assistance and linkages to funding and market

Handholding through business coaching, mentoring, consultancy and training on mindsetting, Business plan,

Accounting, marketing, communication skills etc

Biotech; Agribusiness;

Production assistanceIncubation

services and shared facilities

Selection/ Assessment

Pre-incubation/ Preseed

•Technology commercialization•Product and process improvement•Technology Transfer Office•IP Management


Diagramme by ANAFE

Functions of the Agribusiness Innovation Incubators The mission of the incubator is to facilitate the creation of competitive agribusiness enterprises through technology development and commercialization

The incubator, helps new entrepreneurs and enterprise clients with handholding services starting from business conceptualization to implementation and scaling up

It is up to the clients to choose the kind of services they want from the incubator

The agribusiness incubators will provide institutional frameworks for:

the realisation of business concepts from university faculty and graduates, agricultural research and agribusinesses of all sizes

consultancy services to agribusiness

help in accessing financing for SMEs and start-ups by approaching banks, impact investors and social capitalists


Summary

The UniBRAIN Agribusiness Incubators will become operational in 2012

They are being established to create opportunities for agribusiness

They want to raise awareness that they exist of the value chains they will be working in about what they are going to offer

The are looking forward to meeting the African agribusiness community to get advice and information share ideas to meet potential business partners


Thank you

Agri11 - UniBrain

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