Dear readers, dear colleagues,

April again was a bustling month for Agri-ProFocus. A Core Group Meeting, Exposure Visit Food and Business Brokering with the Embassies, a Participants' Council Meeting and an Expert Meeting on Farm-Firm relations all took place in the same two weeks.

In addition, I was honoured with an invitation to speak about the spearhead 'Food security' at the parliamentary hearing on the future of Dutch development cooperation on 22 April. In my speech, I addressed the importance of supporting farmer entrepreneurship, good governance,  solid vocational agricultural education and keeping the focus on local SMEs. You can read the full speech (in English) by clicking this link.

And that was only in the Netherlands. At the same time, Agri-Hub Ethiopia organised a Finance Fair, we started up an Agri-Hub in Indonesia, Rwanda held an ICT for Agriculture event, and Tanzania raised the issue of youth in agriculture through its Youth in Agri-Business Forum.

I am very proud and satisfied with the outcome of each of these events: we really showed how the new Agri-ProFocus strategy falls into place with the needs and interests of all of our members,  internationally as well as in the Netherlands.

Expert meeting farm-firm relations

“Firms understand farmers, but farmers do not understand firms”. With this bold statement, Agri-ProFocus started an e-discussion on the relations between farms and firms in Africa. With 227 contributions in just 10 days, the discussion proved an excellent prelude to the Expert Meeting organised on 18 April.

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Dispatches from the Great Lakes: Digging for treasures

Agri-ProFocus network facilitator Jan Willem Eggink is spending two weeks in the French-speaking Great Lakes region of Africa. Who did he meet with and what actually did he encounter? In his blog, you will find that working with a network approach is never straightforward, but certainly very rewarding!

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Exposure visit Food and Business Brokering

From 15 to 19 April 2013, a group of 9 staff members fo Dutch Embassies in African countries were joined by nine Agri-Hub coordinators in an exposure visit to the Netherlands. The goal for them was to get acquainted with and learn about the possibilities for cooperation with organisations, institutions and companies from the Netherlands that are active in agriculture.

In her weblog on the Uganda online platform, Agri-business linkage facilitator Sylvia Natukunda writes that "There is definitely a lot that can be gained from business linkages between Uganda and the Netherlands. While the Dutch business sector possesses the expertise, the technology and the capital, the Uganda business sector has the natural resources, population growth seen as a market opportunity and the human capital. Both parties have something to offer and can benefit from each other."

Read more of Sylvia's blog here

Finance Fair in Bahir Dar

Agri-Hub Ethiopia organised its third Agri-Finance Fair in the city of Bahir Dar on Saturday 6 April, 2013. The Fair aimed at linking farmers to financial institutions and creating awareness in farmers about value addition. Around 250 farmers and professionals attended and though this may seem a small number, especially when compared to the previous Fair in Hawassa, this Bahir Dar Fair was more of a success in improving mutual understanding between farmers and financial institutions.

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Exploring opportunities for an Agri-Hub in Indonesia

In 12 African countries, Agri-ProFocus has established successful networks for the promotion of farmer entrepreneurship. Based on the success of these Agri-Hubs, partnership members Hivos, Cordaid and ICCO initiated an exploration into setting up an Agri-Hub in Indonesia in 2013.

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New publication on Agri-Business Development Services

'The business of agricultural business services: working with smallholders in Africa' is the title of a new book published by KIT. It looks at how 12 business service providers from across Africa run their businesses. Which services exist, what challenges do they face and how can they be supported? The Agri-Hubs of Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia have supplied business cases as well as feedback, with Wim Goris and Christel Schiphorst from the Agri-ProFocus support office as peer reviewers. Thiw book is a must-read for every farmer organisation, BDS provider and agri-professional!!

Click here to download the book for free