Agriculture and More Limited (AgMORE) operating under the Brand name ‘Dreameals’ has received 25 participants across 13 Sub-Saharan African countries who are in Ghana to study the prospects in Agribusiness and Value Chain thinking.
The 25 participants are all selected on the Australia Awards Africa programme which is being sponsored by the Australian government for different short courses in sectors like mining, infrastructure, partnership, agribusiness and value chain thinking.
The team which is in Ghana for two-week training after initial six-week training in Australia has been visiting businesses and companies whose operations fall within their scope of training.
The Participants also visited the CSIR-Food Research Institute where they had first-hand knowledge about what the Institute does and what drives its operations.
Speaking to the leader of the team, Dr. Benjamin Dent from the Queensland University in Australia, he observed that the CSIR-Food Research Institute is market oriented whose work is driven by research and the needs of the market and commercializing products describing it as a “fantastic lessons” for the participants.
He explained that the Australia Awards Africa is a cornerstone of the Australian Government’s development assistance program for Africa, which provides access to postgraduate education, training and professional development opportunities.
According to him, the Australia Awards promotes knowledge, education links and enduring ties between Australia and partner countries, supporting the creation of pathways out of poverty through human development and inclusive economic growth.
“Australia Awards Scholarships aim to develop capacity and leadership skills to enable recipients to contribute to development in their home countries, build people-to-people linkages at the individual, institutional and country levels,” he said.
Dr. Dent also enumerated that building capacity of the youth will help address job insecurity, contribute to national cohesion and create a value-chain of appreciation for transformative value.
The team which later visited the Production House of Agriculture and More Limited (Dreameals) were amazed at what they saw.
AgMORE adds value to yam tubers by packing them to be picked off shelves and providing a more stable, time saving and convenient option for consuming yam.
These products are marketed under the product name ‘Dreameals Yam Chips and Slices’ and are available on the local market with delivery service provided as well.
AgMORE’s products have been applauded by the participants; especially Dr Dent who was enthused about how the business builds collaboration, develops products and wins with customer feedback.
He described Nlaliban Wujangi, Founder of AgMORE as a fantastic social entrepreneur who has a great business module and is being able to build collaboration with stakeholders and the market with the products.
He said the team has learnt a lot from Mr. Wujangi in terms of best practice and hopes that the participants will take a cue from what he does *and take these lessons back to their countries to make their farmers better business people.
Addressing the participants, Mr. Wujangi, on his part said AgMORE is an integrated agribusiness registered to engage in Mixed Farming, Management of Post-harvest losses through value addition and food processing, Agricultural Value/Supply Chain Management and Agro Tourism.
According to him, he recognized the stress of farmers in his hometown where they walk long distances to their farms at the break of dawn, mostly barefooted, unable to sell all they produce after harvesting, the losses they incur to weather and other factors and that inspired the birthing of AgMORE to provide a ready market for them in a bid to economically empower them to make their own decisions in health care, education and all other areas of their life. His vision is to feed the world from Africa.
According to him, “AgMORE’s integration makes use of all ‘waste’ (from animal droppings to peels) in a sustainable manner. Secondly, its approach to feeding value addition has been through the use of out growers who are natives from the local communities they currently operate in. These farmers are considered as being a vital part of our business with the responsibility of providing the raw material needs. This approach ensures continuous supply for our operations and is effective in reducing post-harvest loss which is a major challenge in Ghana,” he said.
Concluding, he said “life is but a bed of roses. Having in mind that you do not get what you deserve but what you bargain for, it is important that we put our all into whatever our hands find to do with the aim of being the best. A lot of the time, we have lots of ideas and do not know how to implement them. It is important to list them out, screen and identify the one that requires little effort but high returns to serve as a means in ensuring cash flow challenges are avoided. Finally, it is important that you avoid the use of loans to start a business. You could kill your business before it takes off. Start small and grow,” he advised.
By Prosper Agbenyega