What was it about? Combining the lessons learned in the first training given last year on Regenerative agriculture (read more here) with post-harvest management practices, as starting point for entrepreneurship. The goal of combining all topics: Turning the school farm into a business!

The training started with a recap on Regenerative Agriculture and an introduction on Climate Smart Agriculture and focused on the challenges and developments the participants faced with the regenerative demo-plots that were set up on the school farm during the first training a few months ago, by the participants themselves.

Post-harvest management was the topic of the second day, in which the best practices were discussed, as well as new insights, such as the charcoal ‘fridge’ concept, suitable in hot and arid areas like Burkina Faso.

The third day combined the topics in an interactive sessions on entrepreneurial competences and soft skills, identifying business opportunities, analysing the market and business management using various tools, such as the Business Model Canvas. In groups, they defined value propositions for the school farm with specific added value to the customer, such as organic products and promoting local produce by shortening the food production chain.

Considering the fact that entrepreneurship is not something to be thought by the books, this was an introduction in the principles. The follow-up will be practical: how to transform a farm into a business.

To get inspired, the last day was a visit to an agricultural operation to gather information on climate-smart and regenerative agriculture and post-harvest management. The guided tour included demonstrations of agro-ecological practices, visits to compost and biopesticide production units, and learning about mulching as agro-ecological practice.

Thank you participants, for your engagement and effort! Thank you, HollandGreenTech: Priva and Petronille for the facilitation, and a special thanks to Elie Dipama for the hard work translating and keeping the energy high. It was almost as if we were there with you in the room! Looking forward to continuing the training. 😊