The International Conference on Business Models in Agriculture (IBMA) 2024 is set to address the persistent issue of poverty in the agricultural sector. According to industry experts, farmers have long struggled to generate sufficient income from their produce.

They made the observation on October 25, during a press conference held ahead of the meeting, at the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-chain (ACES) located at the University of Rwanda’s Rubirizi Campus.

The conference will be held from March 25-28, 2024, under the theme "Building Organised Prosperous Communities.”

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Overall, in 175 non-developed nations worldwide, 40 per cent struggle to make ends meet with under $2 (around Rwf2,000) a day, their livelihoods tied to agriculture, according to IBMA.

The key to addressing the issue and ensuring that people engaged in agriculture or food production achieve prosperity lies in dedicated business models that unlock the potential of agro-technologies, funds, resources, post-harvest handling, as well as access to markets through securing markets, the conference organisers pointed out.

The conference was organised by the Africa Organization of Technology in Agriculture (AOTA), in partnership with the University of Rwanda supported by the Rwanda Convention Bureau.

Isaac Kagara, the founder and president of AOTA, said they want to contribute to the understanding that agriculture be considered a profitable venture.

Also, he pointed out that they encourage farmers to work together to adopt profitable farming practices that withstand climate change shocks, such as not relying on rain for productivity, but rather be productive even during drought through efforts including irrigation.

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He indicated that the focus is on helping smallholder farmers get improved farm yields through agricultural experts who are expected to attend the conference, including those from Israel, The Netherlands, and the US, among other countries that registered advancements in the agriculture sector.

"For instance, Israel is a smaller country than Rwanda, has desert, few people do agriculture, but it is self-sufficient in food supply, and it exports [a surplus]. Why? It is because they took agriculture as a profession, it is done by educated people,” he said.

Alfred Bizoza, a professor of agricultural economics at UR’s College of Agriculture, Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine (CAVM), said small-scale farmers need well-functioning business models for them to make profits from their investments.

For developed countries, he said, you find a very small proportion of the population involved in agriculture, but still, they feed the entire community and even export.

"So, where is the problem with Africa where we have the majority of people being farmers, and then we have a shortage of food,” he wondered, observing that there are some contradictions.

"Something needs to change in terms of how we see agriculture as a business model, to what extent this agriculture can be rebranded enough to ensure that people see it as an opportunity,” he said, pointing out that ‘agriculture is the core of every single aspect of our life’ since everyone needs food to be able to live and be productive.

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Nimrod Israely, co-founder and chairman of IBMA, said business models, ecosystems, and technologies constitute three pillars for agriculture business success.

"In Israel today, as little as 0.1 per cent of the population deals with agriculture and we have plenty of food, and farmers are part of the middle class,” he said, suggesting that successful business models contribute to such a development.

"We need to develop unique business models for the smallholders of Africa which today are more than 50 per cent of the workforce in Sub-Saharan Africa, and many other developing economies,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the same day, a contract signing was made with Kenya – through the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) to host IBMA 2025 (which will be held in 2025).