The purpose of the toolkit is to provide prospective entrepreneurs with information and tools to make more informed decisions about whether to go into seed yam production. Our hope is that these resources help your team better assess and execute the business case for producing and marketing seed yam.
The business case is evaluated through three screens:
strategic, business model, and process-level screens.
First Screen:
Purpose
Evaluate the characteristics of yam that are most important to targeted customer segments and quantify the economic value proposition for farmers to adopt quality seed of improved varieties.
Key Question
What is the value proposition to farmers from purchasing and planting quality seed of improved varieties?
Second Screen:
Purpose
Evaluate the impact of different production and marketing assumptions on their bottom line.
Key Question
What is the business case for producing and marketing quality seed yam?
Third Screen:
Purpose
Provide detail on quality seed production using the hydroponic system.
Key Questions
What are the best management practices for fertilization in a hydroponic system?
What is the sequence and timing of seed production activities?
The accompanying operational planning and financial forecasting tools can be customized to an entrepreneur’s specific situation and leveraged to analyze the business case for producing, marketing, and selling seed yam.
Fantastic job completing the introduction to the three screens. The next section will introduce you to Wazobia Enterprises, our fictional company used in the models, and serves as a case study throughout the toolkit.
