Value Chain Development

Developing value chains. Increasing Incomes.

Village Enterprise aims to strategically link microenterprises to value chains to significantly increase their profitability and sustainability. In many rural East African industries–especially agriculture–microenterprises operate independently. They have lower margin potential and very little access to value chains. By creating microenterprises with high margin potential and then organizing them into co-ops (and thus linking them to value chains), Village Enterprise can considerably increase their incomes and realize a parallel reduction in poverty.

Sunflower Value Chain Development Project

Village Enterprise developed the sunflower value chain in the Teso region of Uganda where over 2,000 Village Enterprise trained farmers are now growing sunflowers for oil production.

Program Highlights

Development of new sunflower businesses with increased value-chain development
Quality sunflower seeds provided in addition to seed capital grants
Training on sunflower business + business training
Creation of demonstration plots
Implementation of “co-ops” and savings groups and connection to mills

Impact to Date

Successful introduction of a new cash crop
565 new sunflower businesses
Four new sunflower mills in the region
Price of sunflower crop increased by 100%
83% of farmers still growing sunflowers three years later
85% of co-ops are saving