03 Jul 2016

Women in agribusiness have been urged to have the know-how on capacity and management.

Speaking at the women in agribusiness and food security programme workshop recently, Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) communications manager, Mr Leatile Bakwena said many people did not know the ins and outs of the business, therefore had the mentality that things would happen on their own.

Mr Bakwena said agribusiness was a challenge because it was faced with things such as natural disasters, disease outbreaks, insufficient water, land inadequacy, high input costs as well as lack of proper infrastructure. With such challenges, he said, one should be able to improve themselves.

Mr Bakwena stressed the point that CEDA did not drill boreholes for farmers for their projects that needed water.

Meanwhile, he also told participants that it was better for people to start their small business from their own funding rather than requiring a loan for the whole project owing to high input costs.

On services CEDA that provided, Mr Bakwena said they offered those geared towards mentoring and training of clients thereby enhancing success of investments made in citizen business ventures.

He said on daily basis they fostered citizen entrepreneurship and empowerment, promoted economic diversification as well as improved efficiency in delivery of services to businesses.

Further, he indicated that CEDA had four types of funding which included development, CEDA venture capital (equity investments), short term finance and mortgage equity assistance (initially CEMAEF) and thus urged Batswana to visit their offices to learn more.ENDS