Pamela Anyoti: EMRC forums bring together entrepreneurs – small and very small SMEs on the one hand and Finance and agribusiness knowledge institutions on the other. As an agricultural entrepreneur, my expectations are to acquire information on technologies, partnerships and finance sources available. I would be even more satisfied to see more local, regional and international traders or buyers in these forums in order to have an overview of markets, regulations and commodity price trends.

PA: I have had a lot of press coverage to get my ideas out to all stakeholders involved. Most of all, I have been able to attract financial support in view of the philosophy of my business, which is:  organizing a large number of poor uneducated rural people, teaching them what to do in order produce goods that meet the consumer standards in export markets, training the poor on issues of savings, and focusing on making poor farmers look at agriculture as a business and not purely as a means of subsistence.  

PA: I have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Swiss Contact, the Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation. They will co-finance the component - ‘Training Agronomist as Trainers and establishment of a Cocoa Genebank for the production of high yielding cocoa seedlings’ for my new cocoa project. The cocoa project is projected to involve about 12,000 small holders and my own plantation of 320 acres as the nucleus of work and know-how. This kind of recognition carries with it a double weight because it comes from the Swiss and shows the credibility of my approach to developing an agriculture business that includes those who are usually excluded from access to farm inputs and secure markets.