Value Addition

To transform farm produce into products and support entry into markets; promote entrepreneurship; create business opportunities for the youth; on-farm, off-farm and in agriculture-based creative industries (for example development of Small and Medium Enterprise toolkits to offer business management information and training to the joint projects in value addition and agro-machinery investments in the form of how-to articles, business forms, business software, online training, self-assessment in the long run). Thus, the youth will be trained to acquire requisite skills to develop and sustain agribusinesses where training combines support for acquisition of practical knowledge (in the form of classroom teaching) with practical field work and practical approaches to access services and markets. The cost benefit analysis from the pilot initiatives funded under the small grant demonstrated potential for commercialization of value addition products based on cost benefit analysis which was at least 1:1.48 for the products. Training will therefore be provided aiming at enabling the targeted youth to acquire the following skills: (i) technical skills and knowledge in processing farm produce, e.g. drying, canning, production of fruit pulp, fruit drying, preparation of snacks flour milling, preparation of gari, and fufu, rice cakes, rice biscuits, moringa processing (moringa powder, moringa capsule, moringa soap, moringa toothpaste, moringa seeds, moringa oil, moringa cream, and moringa tea), fish smoking, preparation of fish oil, fish oil capsule, feed processing for fish and livestock; (ii) marketing and sales skills and thus targeted youth will participate profitably in supply chains for the farm processed products; and (iii) integrate producers and youth entrepreneur processors in the agro-food value chains..