Future of Agriterra in Ethiopia

Activities of Agriterra Team Agribusiness in Ethiopia have started approximately two years. Over the past two years the scale of Agriterra's operations in Ethiopia has grown rapidly. Currently it is providing services to 21 unions of which 14 are part of the Cooperatives for Change project, a program operated in partnership with SNV Ethiopia and match-funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Within two years time Agriterra has managed to put itself on the map in Ethiopia and has become one of the major service providers when it comes to strengthening of unions and cooperatives in governance, financial management and business planning. This rapid growth has resulted in various developments and opportunities that requires effective planning and restructuring in order for Agriterra to further upscale and professionalize its activities in Ethiopia and efficiently utilize expected future chances arising in its area of operations. For this reason Agriterra has started this project with the key purpose to define, develop and implement the strategy for the future. The timeframe for this project is one year, meaning that the new strategy should also be operational mid 2015. This scope of this project will be on three major fields: 1. Registration Agriterra has been operation in Ethiopia through a local registered consultancy firm in combination with a MOU with he Federal Cooperative Alliance in Ethiopia. Due to Agriterra's expansion in operations, this modality does no longer seems to be vital and prevents Agriterra from further development and effectively utilizing expected future opportunities. Research has concluded that the only way forward is to register Agriterra as an entity under the societies and charities act. registration basically means setting up a local Agriterra branch. This requires restructuring of the previous mode of operation. An important part of this project will therefore be the development of a strategic business plan for Agriterra in Ethiopia and partly the implementation of this plan. 2. Focus and financing With the projected further growth in the client base and activities, Agriterra Ethiopia would like to develop several key focus areas relating to agricultural sectors. These sectors (e.g. horticulture, sesame, malt barley) should be identified based on potential sector developments, opportunities for the farmers/unions, and possibilities for generating sources of alternative financing (e.g. banks, investors, funds). Through focus Agriterra is expected to professionalize on its activities, products, network, knowledge, etc. This project will provide guidance in identifying these key focus areas. 3. Up-scaling Since Agriterra has become a serious player in cooperative development within Ethiopia, it sees various opportunities to up-scale its activities and number of clients. The Ethiopian economy and the agricultural sector are rapidly growing and the government is giving high priority to developing the sector. In a country where 97 percent of all agricultural produce is produced by small scale farmers, cooperatives and unions form an important role in providing agricultural inputs and creating access to output markets for these small scale farmers. This results in tremendous opportunities for Agriterra and through this project Agriterra in Ethiopia would like to benefit from this momentum by seeking opportunities to further upscale the operations. The three major fields on which the focus of this project lies have much in common and are highly interrelated to one another.