Building agribusiness relations for sustainable profit

13 - 24 November. Ibadan, Nigeria. ICRA course: Building agribusiness relations for sustainable profit – Learning key skills for inclusive business brokerage.

Over the years, ICRA experienced that many business support services (BSS) face difficulties in offering services that have long-lasting impact. Most training events seem to have limited results and do not lead to the desired sustainable income increases and profitable businesses for their clients. As a result, BSS find it hard to attract new clients and projects. They need to invest a lot of time in search for new funding rather than in supporting small-scale producers and processors and doing the work they love and do best.

Successful business support services not only assure that smallholder farmers and agri-entrepreneurs make substantial and sustainable profit, they also assist them in doing it more efficiently. Donors, business and governmental organizations line up to work with such successful serice provides. Don’t you want to be a highly valued professional, earning a decent living and being able to pick the most exciting projects? The secret of successful service providers is that they go beyond a one-of-training and invest in sustainable and financially viable relations.

Course content
Week 1 Business skills and concepts

• Setting up local business networks
• Building business relationships
• Developing a business plan
• Field visit and real life case: learning about public-private partnerships aiming at local processing enterprises, sourcing from farmers in the region

Week 2 Brokering and facilitation skills

• Main topics:
• Negotiation and conflict handling
• Coaching skills
• Durable contracting
• Brokering in value chain partnerships