Using internships to stimulate agricultural entrepreneurship and innovation by graduates of tertiary agriculture education

The USAID-funded Africa Lead Programme –in partnership with Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) continues to develop a Junior Agribusiness Leadership Programme that places SUA graduates in leading Tanzanian and Kenyan agribusinesses for 6-8 week internships. The goal of this programme is to support entrepreneurial graduates of SUA who are members of Sokoine University Entrepreneurs Cooperative (SUGECO) and MBA-Agribusiness Students in applying their studies to agribusiness value chain development. Since 2012, 24 interns have been placed with 15 host companies in Tanzania and 9 host companies in Kenya. The students who completed internships are self-selected in part through SUA’s innovative Graduates Entrepreneurship Programme (SUGECO). Under SUGECO, tertiary graduates develop business plans or innovative ideas that are reviewed by an expert committee. Those with the most promising business plans or innovative ideas are awarded internship placements that allow them to work with a hosting agribusiness to explore how they could convert their business plan or innovative ideas into a real agribusiness. The interns also get the “real world” experience of seeing the daily activities and challenges that face successful agribusinesses. SUGECO facilitated access to finance through commercial banks in Tanzania. A pilot project with CRDB Bank PLC financing is continuing. The Africa Lead Programme plans to continue its partnership with SUA through SUGECO to scale up the Junior Agribusiness Leadership Programme and to replicate this model in other agriculturefocused university programmes across Africa, hence our strong interest in participating in the 4th RUFORUM Biennial Conference. The model is unique in many respects but the key aspects that make it most attractive for scaling include its contribution to growth of agriculture and agribusiness sectors in the economy, employment creation for youth who increasingly becoming jobless after graduation, and its potential to improve the human resource base in the agricultural sector. In addition to the Junior Agribusiness Leadership Programme, Africa Lead also supports a Senior Agribusiness Leadership Programme that places mid- and senior-level agribusiness employees in top-performing agribusinesses in Africa, Asia, and the United States.