In response to the Addis Ababa City Mayor’s Office’s commendable initiative aimed at aiding lower-income households during the Ethiopian New Year, FriEL Ethiopia has taken a meaningful step by contributing a substantial amount of birr 50,000. This generous donation has been directed to the administration of Kirkos subcity woreda 02, with the purpose of invigorating community morale and fostering a sense of togetherness. The funds will be utilized to facilitate the engagement of the local residents in a heartwarming meal-sharing (የማዕድ ማጋራት) program, thoughtfully organized to commemorate the holiday season.
Innovators’ Incubation And Acceleration (IIA) Program Details
Who is eligible for IIA?
Facilities available for the Cohort
Duration of the IIA program
Size of the Cohort
Who is eligible for IIA?
Any experimenting high school, vocational or technical school or university student or fresh graduate that intends to advance innovative solutions in agribusiness is eligible for our IIA program.
Anyone that is enrolled in other incubation programs is not allowed to join the program.
Facilities available for the Cohort
Coworking space
High speed internet
Working exposure on the farm
Seed fund for startups
Duration of the IIA program
The maximum duration of the program shall be no more than 6 months.
Size of the Cohort
Any given cohort of our IIA program shall not be more than a group of 10 individual innovators.
Contents of the IIA program
Each incubation, acceleration or scaling program is built out of different modules that address the most important needs of the specific group of innovators or companies. Here is a complete overview of the kind of support that will be provided at each stage.
Incubation Modules
Module 1
Module 2
Module 3
Module 4
Module 5
Module 6
Ongoing Support
Module 1
Ideation
Ideation workshop & idea generation exercises
Developing a Lean Canvas
Building a Minimum Viable Product
Customer validation / Customer Safari
Module 2
Product/service design workshop
Peer to peer feedback & support
Mentorship & coaching
Access to topical experts
Module 3
Developing a sustainable and scalable business model
Further development of Lean Canvas
Defining & testing assumptions
Business model scalability
Module 4
Going to market
Marketing
Sales
Distribution
Module 5
Measuring Impact
Theory of Change development
Defining key metrics and how to integrate them into the service/product
Module 6
Seed investment pitch
Pitch development
Presenting to angel investors
Ongoing Support
Peer to peer feedback & support
Mentorship & coaching
Access to topical experts
Scaling Modules
As each venture takes a different approach and faces different challenges when scaling, we take a holistic, non-prescriptive approach and provide support that is largely tailored to each venture’s needs. The scaling process generally includes six steps.
Module 1
Module 2
Module 3
Module 4
Module 5
Module 6
Improving Scaling Readiness
Module 1
Prove
Work out if scaling is right for your company
Assess readiness of your business to scale
Improve your application readiness
Module 2
Design
Understand the options for scaling
Select the scaling model that works for your business
Design your scaling model
Module 3
Systemize
Develop recruitment and support functions for replication
Document systems and processes
Develop legal documentation
Module 4
Pilot
Understand vital elements needed to be in place for your scaling pilot to be a success
Develop a plan for communicating with the implementing team
Put a monitoring and evaluation framework into practice and install a feedback loop for continuous improvement
Module 5
Explore new markets
Select potential markets for scaling
Understand your value proposition in the context of various markets
Identify key actors and partners you need to scale into new markets
Module 6
Scale
Develop a clearer picture of organizational changes needed to achieve scale
Go to key markets and channels
Build strategic partnerships that help you scale
Improving Scaling Readiness
Organizational model development
Senior and middle management capacity
Recruitment and talent management processes
Legal forms and processes
Brand and marketing
Business development and sales
Advanced financial modelling and management
Market exploration and penetration
We support scaling ventures in market exploration and penetration via trade missions, connections to key advisors and partners in the target markets and by providing access to various forms of financing and/or distribution channels of large corporates.
We believe that the launching of this program will help to improve the commercialization and modernization of agriculture, and the development of an indigenous agribusiness sector while imparting youth with relevant experience and skills. Applications to the next cohort of the IIA program will be announced on our website once they are open.
FriEL Ethiopia Farming & Processing plc has donated COVID-19 prevention goods for Dasenech Woreda to its fight against the pandemic. The donation aims to address the dire needs in highly vulnerable areas, providing basic necessities, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines, face masks, and personal hygiene items. Since Dasenech woreda is in a border area to Kenya, contamination from illegal migrants from neighboring countries makes the woreda vulnerable to the pandemic.
This act of support is not the first time for FriEL Ethiopia and the company has provided medical materials to local residents and provided assistance to a student of the pastoralist society of Dasenech woreda who is studying midwifery in a higher education institution. The company is acting according to its social corporate responsibility strategy to protect the local community and its own employees.
The donation was made in the presence of STV, woreda administrative authorities, and the management of FriEL Ethiopia on May 4th, 2020 at the Dassenech Woreda Administration compound. Details of the donation are listed in the table below.
1 – Woreda Administrator Mr. Kebraraw Tekle gave an interview about the pandemic prevention strategies and the partnership of FriEL Ethiopia with the Woreda administration.
2 – FriEL Ethiopia’s farm Manager, Mr. Gumataw Ali gave an interview about the pandemic and FriEL Ethiopia’s contribution in dealing with the spread of the pandemic.
Item Description
U.O.M
Quantity
Remark
Water Tanker (5,000 Lt.)
Pcs
2
For sanitation purpose
Amoxicillin Suspension
Carton
10
To be used in case of infection
NS (Glucose)
Bag
204
Disposable Face Mask
Pcs
500
For prevention of the infection and sanitation purposes
New farmland development and facility improvement were sought as part of the overall expansion and rehabilitation plan of FriEL Ethiopia Farming and Processing. We believe this will boost productivity and show the company’s commitment toward mutual benefit with the employees by creating a better working environment and its development partnership with the government by increasing its productivity and production.
FriEL ETHIOPIA Farming & Processing Plc. is undergoing a major reform in all aspects of its operations envisaging a productive, profitable, and all-inclusive development. Major reforms achieved so far include:-
Reorganizing and staffing of farm site and Addis office departments with professionals having rich experience in the sector since January 2019. In addition to that, a professional consultancy was also been hired to update the existing organizational structure, staffing plan, benefits scheme, job manuals, etc. in July 2019.
Although the farm can develop 1,500 hectares (15%) of its total area coverage in the 2018/19 season – which is an improvement compared to previous years, new 2,500 hectares of land or 25% of the total area coverage has also been developed for cultivation on the next season (2019/20) making the total cultivable land reach 4,000 hectares (40%).
With cultivable farmland expansion, fulfillment of farm machines such as excavators, graders, loaders, and dump trucks has already been done from January to July 2019.
Purchase of three double cabs, one single cab, and one ambulance has also been made to facilitate the expansion and rehabilitation of both on and off-farm operations from January to July 2019.
Civil work for the ginning plant has also commenced in June 2019 anticipating erecting the ginning plant in August 2019 to start operation before the 2020 season. The ginning machines are all imported and shipped to the farm site.
Based on the company’s strategy to have an independent and reliable power source for the ginning plant, irrigation pumps, and other operations that require electricity, the importation of solar panels with a capacity of producing 300KW is underway with a plan to start erection and generation of power in September 2019.
There is a need of sustainable agriculture in Ethiopia because the sustainability of agriculture affects other needs such as food security and water. Ethiopia has promoted agricultural investment for over two decades now the government has showed a commitment towards enhancing agricultural productivity through attracting investment on agriculture on both local and foreign stockholders.
Agricultural sector can help Ethiopia and Ethiopians both in economic and environmental aspects. It has already made a significant contribution to the economic prosperity of our country in such a way that:-
Agriculture provides employment
Agricultural sector can decrease unemployment rate of the country by providing employment for a vast army of educated/uneducated and skilled/unskilled labours.
Agriculture contributes to National Income
Since we all know shortage of foreign currency is headache for our country, Agricultural sector can contribute on generating foreign currencies from export row materials. The perfect example for this is our company Fri-el Ethiopia which is engaged in cotton farming and processing to help the country from costing extra foreign currencies for importing cotton.
Beyond economic impact, agricultural investment is ideal choice for environmental protection. Some of them are:-
Agriculture creates Habitats
Agricultural system that works in peace with nature creates diverse natural habitats.
Some species even increase in number due to agricultural activities.
Agriculture boosts soil fertility
Agriculture is one of the best way to increase soil fertility practices such as crop rotation, application of compost and cover cropping can improve soil fertility naturally.
Agriculture retains soil and preserve erosion
Loses of soil is one of the biggest threat of our well-being. Agricultural investment, however, has the ability to preserve this damage.
