Deadline: 10 June 2014
The 2014 Africa Agribusiness Competition is accepting Essay and Video Clips submissions from youth between 18 and 30 years of age. The major objectives of the competition are to promote new business opportunities in crop value chains in Africa; raise awareness of opportunities in agriculture; identify wealth creation activities among communities in Africa and make agriculture ‘cool’ for the youth.
The competition is a joint initiative of Syngenta- one of the world’s leading companies dedicated to the purpose of bringing plant potential to life. It helps to increase crop productivity, protect the environment and improve health and quality of life; and Enactus Kenya– a community of students, academia and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives. In the back front lies the declaration of African Union- 2014 as the year of Agriculture and Food Security.
Competition Categories
The Business Idea Competition: Submit 500 words essay focused on selected crop value chains. Contestants should select either one staple crop (rice, maize or cassava) or one cash crop (vegetables or potatoes); identify a problem that makes that particular crop’s value chain ineffective and/or inefficient and propose a replicable, practical idea/solution that has the potential to make a step-change improvement in the chosen value chain. The term ‘Crop value chain’ entails all the activities in involved in crop production- farm inputs, logistics, product processing, packaging, marketing and sales to the end consumer.
The Agri-business Messaging Competition: Submit a 3-minute video (multimedia agricultural messaging) that targets to make agriculture ‘cool’ business option for the youth to plan their career.
The competition is an opportunity to win cash awards, showcase ‘Agriculture Is Cool’ ideas that contribute towards food security and draw attention of potential investors to implement the agri-business idea. Selected 25 contestants will receive $1,000 each to test their agri-business idea in the field for 25 days. Six finalists will be awarded in the in the gala event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in September 2014.
