The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute (SMEDI) has trained 1 000 beneficiaries of the Transforming Agriculture through Diversification and Entrepreneurship (TRADE) Programme in entrepreneurship, business management and leadership skills under Honey Value Chain Commercialization and Resilience of Rural Poor and Smallholder Producers Project.
The trained beneficiaries are cooperatives, FBOs and clubs in honey value chain. The training follows an assessment of training needs on the beneficiaries through inception meetings that were held with selected representatives of the clubs and stakeholders.
The 1 000 were trained in Nkhata Bay district in 4 EPAs, namely; Chikwina, Chintehche, Mpamba and Mzenga, which are the implementing EPAs of the Honey Value Chain Commercialization and Resilience of Rural Poor and Smallholder Producers (Product diversification and modern production techniques) in the district.
The training on Entrepreneurship, Business Management and Leadership Skills is coming at a time when the government is promoting the strengthening of farmer-based organisations.
Diversification of products is expected to help improve access to markets and financial services linkages to increase productivity.