Successful agripreneurs play an important role in creating sustainable food systems, generating jobs and income and driving social change. However, there’s still a lot to learn about how governments, incubators and financial institutions can better help agripreneurs. We need to better understand how to build their skills, improve market access and meet gender-specific needs. Research can focus on how agribusinesses can grow while dealing with value chain issues, how local innovations and financial tools can support them, and how they adopt technology and respond to climate challenges.
2026
Whitepaper Agri-Entreprenership Training in Africa
Over the past two decades, agri-entrepreneurship training programmes for smallholders have expanded across Africa. While these programmes are well intentioned, their impact on livelihoods has often fallen short because their design and delivery do not align with evidence-based best practices. This paper identifies 11 principles for effective agri-entrepreneurship training, covering training content, delivery processes and governance. It then applies these principles to a case study of Burundi to illustrate the broader conditions that contribute to the failure or success of agri-entrepreneurship training programmes.
