Excel Hort Consult Agribusiness Incubator today 6th August 2021, hosted a coffee-farming family in an afternoon that featured a project tour of all demonstration farms at their Mbarara location.
The family, led by Mr Mugambwa, wife and two children alongside Hilda Tusingwire, a community engagement specialist, were briefed by Professor Tumwesigye who highlighted the incubator’s endeavours to increase the shelf life of agricultural products through branding and packaging wine, hibiscus, banana juice, among others.
Prof Tumwesigye, a resident Professor with ECHAI, also highlighted EHCAI’s other focus areas in increasing the market for Farmers, access to finance and skills development.
Uganda has been voted the most enterprising but most businesses die before the age of one, we want to change that through business incubation
Prof Tumwesigye
ECHAI, founded in 1999, started incubating agricultural businesses in 2017 and has gone on to add multiple skilling projects onto their portfolio including revamping the livelihoods of refugee host communities through irrigation, food processing, input and output market development, among others.
In their feedback, the day’s guests highlighted how impressed they were observing space utilization for vegetable gardens, the solar-powered irrigation system and the skilling program. Insights shared also included manure use, and banana plant spacing, among others.
The Director General of ECHAI Prof Alex Ariho noted how they were already in the process of profiling farms for Agro Tourism purposes countrywide – another focus area among many, in the organization’s fast-growing portfolio.
“I know we are going to work with Hilda at the Ministry of Local government” Prof Ariho noted, in anticipation of further engagement with guest, Hilda Tusingwire, a community mobilisation specialist with another Agro-intervention project in Western Uganda.
Excel Hort continues to accelerate its programs with efforts largely directed towards Agro-tourism, Food processing, natural resources rehabilitation plus market development for input and output in agriculture.
Excel also offered to interest farmer stakeholders in its upcoming training hubs among its many interventions.
Located at Kora Norya, outside Mbarara town, the outfit stands out as an exceptional leader in agro-intervention efforts regionally and countrywide.
