Sweet Potato Company is a registered Start Up in Burundi. It processes sweet potatoes into bakery flour used to make bread, thickener and juices. My company’s objective is to ensure food security and reduce unemployment among women and youths in Burundi. I founded the company in November 2018 and so far it has hired and mentored 19 youths who now have potential to start their own businesses. I have 187 farmers in business skills and modern techniques of farming sweet potatoes.As a result, three cooperatives of a 138 farmers have explored the market of 5,700 Kgs of sweet potatoes. I have also signed a five year contracts with E-home Burundi to supply them with sweet potatoes flour. According to World Bank report in 2018, Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world with an average of 74.7% living in poverty. The most affected are the youth and women, whom I am passionate about. I want to provide them with skills, knowledge and innovative ideas which they can use to create employment. Cooperatives work better in rural communities because people can relate, work in teams and help each other. I want to reach out to fifteen chiefdoms, creating approximately 3000 registered youth and women led cooperatives in 13 provinces. I will continue to teach community members about how they can start and run their cooperatives efficiently at the same time encouraging partnerships with the private sector. Sweet potatoes are perishable and could only last for 7days and this leading to food wastage during surplus and harvesting periods. Farmers were not gaining adequate yield. I started Sweet Potato Company to add value to sweet potatoes farmers. I first trained farmers how to grow them in the shortest of time, producing a higher yield. After harvesting, they bring their sweet potatoes to our warehouse. We buy based on weight, not random estimation as applied in the market. That puts local farmers at an advantage as they make more money. Through the help of two engineering students we designed and made a grinding machine. Burundi has a lot of potential to become an agricultural hub in Africa because of its geo location and weather but it needs skilled individuals who are ready to serve and apply relevant skills. I need also to incorporate other international organizations which will help me continue to advocate for economic rights for women and youths through agripreneurship.
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