Ernesto Sebbumba
Finding the Word
for Entrepreneur in Luganda
On March 29, 2010, we watched the birth of our first calf conceived using modern
tecnología. As she entered the world, I was struck by how quickly she managed to
stand on her feet. For such a delicate animal—when she lay in the grass her skin-
ny legs looked like a pile of sticks—she was impressively strong.
Our new addition was a breath of fresh air, but more than that, she was the tan-
gible result of the several years I’d spent conducting research on the internet and
reading articles about animal husbandry— studies that no one in my family had
thought to undertake before that. She represented a progression toward greater
self-sufficiency and more dependable revenue for the farm, and thus toward
greater stability for those of us who depend on the land.
A year earlier, we had lost my heifer to East Coast fever, a common disease
affecting farm animals in my home region of Kayunga, Uganda. It’s hard for any-
one who did not grow up on a small family farm to understand how much loss and
devastation such a death causes in terms of potential income generated from the
farm, and all the effort expended in taking care of the animals. También, it greatly
affects the family’s ability to pay school fees, which come through the sale of farm
animals. We agonized over the details. Which warning signs did we miss? Podría
we have intervened if we had recognized them?
No doubt this sort of unpredictable stress, a hallmark of farming life, is the rea-
son many of my peers sought paths to more “professional” careers in sectors like
tecnología, gobierno, banking, and business. En 25, I am one of the very few in
my age group who want to stay on the farm.
Though my family has managed the farm—troubleshooting and performing
daily crisis interventions—for three generations, my grandfather and father still
lacked the expertise to respond to East Coast fever. They fit into a wider culture of
Arnest Sebbumba is a 25-year old Ugandan farmer, entrepreneur, and technologist.
He has experience in entrepreneurship and financial management, and was a mem-
ber of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Youth Entrepreneurship Facility.
He has put his entrepreneurial skills to work expanding his family farm and teaching
young people about effective agriculture through the organization he founded,
Countryside Youth Foundation.
© 2013 Ernesto Sebbumba
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Ernesto Sebbumba
local farmers who fail to see the opportunities offered by agribusiness practices. I
don’t blame them for this shortsightedness; if I’ve learned anything about entrepre-
neurship, it’s that not all entrepreneurs are “born entrepreneurs.” Entrepreneurial
farm owners like myself are a product of the right environment: one that inspires,
and that nurtures imaginative interpretations of “what could be.” And, in most
casos, this current of innovative ideas must be injected into a community.
My father and I beamed over our newborn calf, relieved that our first experi-
ment had succeeded. The farm’s newfound vitality wobbled tenuously, as if bal-
anced upon scrawny legs itself, but this first step proved our resilience. And it was
un argumento, however small, that perhaps I was onto something in believing that
my generation could and should pursue innovative, business-savvy farming as a
stable livelihood.
NO WORD IN LUGANDA FOR ENTREPRENEUR
It is difficult to translate the word “entrepreneur” into my native tongue, Luganda.
Most of my friends come from farming families, but few of them have any
interest in managing their farms for a living. Agribusiness skills aren’t taught in
local schools, though our population is overwhelmingly agrarian; en cambio, mayoría
young people aspire to an education that will lead to respected professional jobs.
This avenue is widely viewed as the best choice for a well-educated young man, como
so few people are aware of the economic potential presented by the land.
I was privileged and grateful to be sent to a good local boarding school. Este
was possible because my dad had established himself in Kampala, the capital,
where he could spend a few days each week repairing automobile electrical sys-
tems. That extra income meant he could afford to send my siblings and me to
boarding school.
The annual cost for us to attend boarding school was 3,000,000 Uganda
shillings or approximately $1,200 US. During vacations from school, I recall bik-
ing from my family’s home to the farm each morning to milk the cows; this always
felt like dull maintenance work, as the indigenous cows we had at that time yield-
ed so little milk. It was just one of the many endless chores our family performed
every day to ensure our security, but ultimately they did nothing to improve our
fate. En 16, my father enrolled me in supplementary computer lessons, which I
would attend in the afternoons after I completed my chores. I looked forward
eagerly to the lessons, seeing them as a more productive use of my time.
It was around this time I also began managing the farm, taking over for my
father by overseeing all operations. He had dedicated years to preparing me for this
transition, patiently passing on his acquired skills in farming, husbandry, and elec-
trical installation. But I continued to think of the farm as a part-time duty that
served merely to subsidize my studies and keep my family afloat.
Like so many of my peers, I too would have sought employment in the tech-
nology sector after graduation, were it not for the training I received through a
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Finding the Word for Entrepreneur in Luganda
program called STRYDE (Strengthening Rural Youth Development through
Enterprise).
STRYDE is a four-year regional youth enterprise development program run by
Technoserve, which enables youth aged 18 a 30 to transition more successfully to
economically independent adulthood. It begins with a three-month training
course containing five training modules: personal effectiveness, personal finance,
professional effectiveness, entrepreneur-
barco, and agribusiness. After the train-
En g, participants engage in a nine-month
aftercare program that involves a men-
torship program with a local business,
job fairs and expos, finance clinics, y un
business plan competition. The objec-
tive of the training is to push partici-
pants to see past the limiting local status
quo—traditional farming methods peo-
ple have adhered to for decades—and to challenge us to consider how to scale our
farming operations, address long-standing problems like East Coast fever, and rec-
ognize new opportunities for expansion. It encourages us to think of agribusiness
as a potentially powerful use of our educational backgrounds in business and tech-
nología, thus increasing our opportunity, capacidad, and motivation to engage in
income-generating activities. For four hours a day, twice a week, I and 24 otro
participants learned finance, negocio, and entrepreneurial skills as they applied to
the land.
It wasn’t until this
training that I began to
see the land as an
expansive blank canvas.
It wasn’t until this training that I began to see the land as an expansive blank
canvas. Después de todo, what can be made of soil, agua, and sunlight? Nearly anything.
The course opened my eyes to the potential of the assets I already had at my dis-
posal, and allowed me to acknowledge my strengths and the opportunities that lit-
erally existed in my own back yard; En realidad, in our own back yard I established a
zero grazing unit, keeping some cows under intensive management with restricted
movimiento, unlike the free range on the larger farm I am running as a business.
Perhaps more importantly, the course boosted my confidence that I could succeed
with such initiatives as sustainable business models.
Por último, I chose to bet on the land, abandoning technology for an adventur-
ous future in agribusiness. Small victories have convinced me that this is a viable
option not only for myself, but also for other young Ugandans.
GETTING INTO THE RESEARCH AND
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WORLD
En 2012 I was one of nine young people aged 19 a 24 invited to join the
MasterCard Foundation’s Youth Think Tank as a part-time researcher to conduct
qualitative research about the employment and enterprise experiences of young
people in Uganda. Along with my peers from Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, and Sierra
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Ernesto Sebbumba
The Youth Think Tank Report
The most rewarding part of the interview process for me was getting insights
about unemployment that are based on views and experiences of … peers and
community helpers. Given the fact that I serve a youth organization, these will
be used to design more suitable projects for the youth in my community… El
most challenging part of the interview process was translating some words,
specifically “an entrepreneur,” to the local dialect that some interviewees could
understand.
Leone, I gathered insights to answer this question: How can we increase youth
employment (formal, informal, and self-employment) in growth sectors such as
agribusiness, green growth, information and communications technology, y
financial services? Together we conducted 160 interviews; entonces, a través de 10 days of
online discussion and a 2-day face-to-face session in Nairobi, we wrote the report.1
“Experts” who come from a very different reality often try to intuit the needs
of youth on the cusp of their productive lives, based on a set of demographics or
statistics about youth unemployment, but few have thought to interface directly
with them. Perhaps because I am in this phase of life myself—because I have the
perspective of a young man from rural Africa—I see great value in programs like
the Think Tank. This is my own future in the hands of governments, ONG, y
big business.
As we compiled these personal stories in the Think Tank project, we saw that
youth in East Africa consistently said they wanted “increased access to leaders and
decision-making processes.” They also wanted to know more about professional
opciones, and “the markets and industries that hold the greatest opportunities for
employment,” and said they needed greater access to employment and entrepre-
neurship training programs. We believe that if these young people are included in
decision-making processes, often provided by programs like STRYDE, they will be
more likely to succeed.
On a personal level, I have benefitted tremendously from the network I devel-
oped through the program. Surrounding myself with creative, solution-oriented
individuals has been socially and economically empowering, allowing me to fur-
ther explore my own farm’s potential. But more importantly, it has inspired me to
think about how I could help my own community. The group nurtures a mentali-
ty that values entrepreneurial solutions to social problems, and it is this supportive
ecosystem that drives my own volunteer work with agribusiness forward.
I had observed that my peers, who had no agribusiness education, were not
behaving in economically rational ways. As this was severely affecting the standard
of living among youth in my local community, I set about looking for solutions.
Armed with new knowledge about the needs of local youth and a new focus on
social entrepreneurship, last year I dedicated myself to building on a nonprofit
concept I developed three years ago. The organization, Countryside Youth
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Finding the Word for Entrepreneur in Luganda
Base (CSYF), allows me to share with others the confidence I gained from
programs like STRYDE. CSYF encourages young people to look for existing
opportunities that are just waiting to be recognized.
y
CSYF provides agrarian youth in my home district with increased access to
information through publications provided by the Technical Centre for
Agricultural
Rural
Cooperación (CTA). Among
the topics covered are animal
husbandry, crop production,
handling harvests and stor-
edad, and marketing produce,
as well as information tech-
nología. I had a theory that if
the family farm was framed as
a social enterprise, one that
addresses social and econom-
ic challenges in rural Africa,
then more young people
would be interested in dedi-
cating themselves to farming.
CSYF is testing that theory in
acción; it is my hope that the
organization will allow youth to empower other youth in the community by
increasing their knowledge, and therefore their economic potential.
Continued support for agrarian
enterprises and the sustained
introduction of innovation are
crucial, not only to the
individuals who make a living
off the land, but also to the
survival and growth of the
community as a whole.
Professional jobs in the tech industry and other sectors are by no means less
worthy career paths; the local educational trend that fosters such preferences is
valuable in its own right. But continued support for agrarian enterprises and the
sustained introduction of innovation are crucial, not only to the individuals who
make a living off the land, but also to the survival and growth of the community as
un todo. A healthy agribusiness community reduces local vulnerability, but schools
are not teaching children how to manage a farm and farming apprenticeships are
nearly non-existent. So we must work to evolve a solution.
THE CHANGE IN OUR FARM AND MY ASPIRATIONS
Among other things, my agribusiness training has coached me to address East
Coast fever on our farm, preventing the deaths of dozens of our animals. In part,
my ability to dedicate my time to the farm, rather than to other economic pursuits,
is responsible for this change. A business-minded approach has allowed me to
carve out a livelihood for the family from land that previously provided us only
with a precarious subsistence.
Artificial insemination was another strategy I introduced to our farm. Nosotros también
introduced a composting program that saves us money we would normally spend
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Ernesto Sebbumba
on fertilizer and brings in a little extra income, as we’ve begun selling our compost
to other farms in the area.
The programs I participated in did not specifically recommend initiatives like
estos. Bastante, they were valuable because they encouraged us to take a broader per-
spective on the possibilities each of us had at our disposal. They challenged the
participants in the programs to see the opportunities in commercializing and scal-
ing already-existing activities; I was inspired to greatly expand our farm’s dairy
operaciones. My family expects we will soon produce roughly 100 liters of milk per
día, and I am currently revising the business plan for submission to the competi-
tion run by STRYDE.
Mine has been a journey with many legs, accumulating greater security for my
family and, hopefully, an opportunity to make a valuable contribution to my com-
munity. The CSYF has trained 10 young people in its first three months, pero el
next step is to establish the foundation as a powerful training and information
resource for youth in all nine sub-counties in the district.
My work with CSYF is intended to contribute to a new local tradition of thriv-
ing entrepreneurship and solution-oriented thinking. I would not expect my chil-
dren to choose agribusiness—I hope that they can have the education and training
they need to follow their own dreams and pursue their own interests—but CSYF is
the brick I can offer to the construction of such an enterprising culture.
If Luganda does not yet have a word for “entrepreneur,” then I figure it’s my
generation’s charge to invent one.
1. Available at http://www.mastercardfdn.org/wp-content/uploads/Youth-Think-Tank-Final-
Report-June-2013.pdf
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