Speaking during AAA annual general meeting convened on Wednesday in Dar es Salaam the AAA Country Chairman, Sanford Kombe, said as an entrepreneur network seeking to foster innovation and growth of small and medium scale agribusiness firms in Africa, their ultimate aim is to contribute to economic growth and improvement of rural income and food security in Africa.

 

“Since we started operations in 2010, established by a group of innovative agrifood entrepreneurs from Eastern Africa, we are currently active in five countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda and each country has its own Country Chapter governed by a Board and each chapter is composed of a number of Business Clubs located at important commercial hubs across the country,” said Kombe.

 

He said that over one million small and medium-scale farmers in Tanzania are linked to AAA members, benefitting from increased incomes as a result, and contributing to improved food security.

“Over one million small scale farmers countrywide have benefited with the trainings from AAA thus improving their productivity and food security,” he said

He said that the development of the African food industry requires visionary entrepreneurs. That’s why the AAA sees the strengthening of entrepreneurship as the key to successful agricultural growth and rural development.

 

Also speaking at the event, Deputy Head of Mission Netherlands Embassy in Tanzania, Hinke Nauta, said her Embassy has been supporting AAA since its establishment and they are confident with the organization’s role in expanding and strengthening their role in the food- and agribusiness sector.

 

‘We strongly support knowledge sharing for best practices, and we commend AAA for their drive of innovation because we believe agriculture development should not only focus on agriculture alone, but the whole value chain’ said Nauta.

 

Supported by Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands and the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness (DAEA/SUA) in Tanzania, AAA core activities involves, among others, entrepreneurs support entrepreneurs, resource centre, and coaching activities. The organization’s vision has been to strengthen entrepreneurship as the key successful agricultural growth and rural development.

 

‘The Academy has introduced a new approach that is driven by private sector thus bringing together a core group of successful African agri-food entrepreneurs providing role models and business opportunities for new generation’ said Hans Nijhoff, AAA Tanzania Project Director.

 

The AAA, with its Tanzania Chapter based in Arusha, aims at creating a self-supporting business platform boosting the development of small and medium scale agribusiness firms in Africa through developing a truly Pan-African knowledge base for entrepreneurship and business growth, created by the agrifood SME sector itself.