Based in Western Uganda, the Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment (YICE) is an eco-inclusive enterprise that provides a variety of agricultural services to smallholder farmers to improve their livelihoods. These smallholder farmers are often located in difficult to access communities and constrained by a lack of agricultural knowledge – on crop spacing, pest control, water management, and fair market rates, insufficient capital, and limited market access.
To address this problem, YICE has trained a group of farm agents to act as YICE representatives and community leaders. The enterprise specifically targets youth and women to be trained as representatives. Innovative mobile technology developed by YICE’s partners provides smallholder farmers with access to key information on trainings, quality farm inputs, and fair market prices for produce. YICE aims to use this information and the provision of microloans to empower the local community to make better, more informed decisions at various levels of the farming value chain.
The new case study series that emanated from the SWITCH Africa Green project "Promoting Eco-Entrepreneurship in Africa", implemented by SEED, showcases how innovative eco-inclusive start-up enterprises in Africa shape sustainable development on the ground. The individual case studies are enhanced with short multimedia features that showcase the innovation, the partnership, the support from SEED and the overall impact of each enterprise.
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