The agricultural
sector in many parts of Africa provides large potential to create economic
opportunity for youth. However, youth are increasingly moving away from
agriculture and rural areas to find employment in urban areas. Rural youth
often do not consider agribusinesses as a viable option for employment. Yet
increasing employment on farms and in value chains is a necessary component to
creating a sustainable and inclusive food system.
The African
Youth Agripreneurship Program (AYAP), funded in partnership with Barclays
Africa, is working to encourage youth employment in the agribusiness. The
program, which began in January of 2015, seeks to provide technical and
business skills to youth operating businesses within the agricultural value
chain, such as food processing and farming, as well as improving their access
to markets and finance.
The program
provides support to start-up businesses, as well a serving as a business
accelerator to established businesses, which have been in operation for more
than three years and have high growth potential for expansion and creating
youth employment. The program has worked with 20 potential entrepreneurs.
Frustrated
with the time-consuming nature of cooking her meals due to a lack of ready made
ingredients, Audrey Allotey, a single and very busy woman entrepreneur realized
that Ghanaian culture was shifting to faster-paced lifestyle, where the time
for cooking at home meals has become limited.
With that in
mind, the then 29-year-old launched Audylot Company Limited, which provides
ready-to-use spices and flavoring products to eager Ghanaian consumers, in
2012. However, in the beginning, Audrey struggled to get financing to
grow her business,stagnating in the start-up phase.
Audrey found
support from AYAP and TechnoServe’s Enhancing Growth in New Enterprises
(ENGINE) program, which provided her with technical and financial support to
grow the business. Today the company has seen production capacity increase by
50 percent. She has also been able to hire five permanent staff members, all
women and mothers, and has up to 10 casual workers when production is high.
In addition,
she has managed to gain traction in Ghana’s high-end supermarkets because of
her natural product, which is free of preservatives and additives, appealing to
the health conscious consumer. Audrey has big plans for her growing company.
She has taken steps in developing a sustainable sourcing strategy, as well as
improving product traceability.
"This
business venture allows me to merge a variety of passions, and by doing so, I
am able to improve the lives of my employees," said Audrey.
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