By the time a millet snack produced by rural women reaches a village market stall in India or Kenya, a quiet economic transformation is already underway.
These enterprises are often described as informal and temporary, yet they represent one of the most underleveraged pathways for inclusive growth and nutrition security, both hallmarks of national agricultural development plans.
Agriculture today is increasingly about how food is processed, packaged, branded, and brought to market, not just about production.
It is at the level of small-scale food processing that this shift becomes tangible, and where strategic investment can generate outsized returns.
The scale of the opportunity is clear. In low-income regions, for example, a substantial share of food is lost between harvest and consumption, representing both a development failure and a missed economic opportunity.
Village and neighbourhood-level processing, including drying, milling, and other forms of local value addition, offers a cost-effective way to cut these losses while retaining income locally, creating jobs, and stabilizing food availability.
Women and youth are already well-positioned to lead this shift. They are active across local value chains, including small-scale food processing and value addition.
FAO data show that women comprise about 43% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries on average, with substantially higher shares in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
What constrains their ability to grow and capture greater value from agriculture is not a lack of motivation or raw materials, but limited access to training, quality standards, business capabilities, and finance.
Capital follows structure, and structure begins with skills.
This is precisely the gap ICRISAT is helping to close. Working alongside partners, we are accelerating skills-first investments through our Dryland Academy, and the results are telling.
In Koraput district, Odisha, women entrepreneurs now produce finger millet–based meals for over 3,600 students in 55 government schools, improving child nutrition while creating local income opportunities.
Launched in 2023, the ICRISAT-supported millet processing unit in Semiliguda, developed with the Odisha Livelihoods Mission and the Department of Mission Shakti, serves four gram panchayats or local self-government bodies at the rural level.
In Mihango, Kenya, a young woman’s enterprise, IPOP Africa, is transforming climate-resilient sorghum and millet into market-ready, nutritious products that have already created seven local jobs and demonstrated how skills-driven value addition can turn dryland crops into viable businesses.
In the rural community of Balleyara, Niger, women have been equipped with transformative skills in food hygiene, agro-food processing, and marketing through ICRISAT’s Smart Food training to take their enterprises to market.
These are just a few of many examples, all pointing to a consistent driver being agri-entrepreneurship education and training.
Through the recently launched Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) training program, Agri-preneurship for Women and Youth: Small-Scale Food Processing Enterprises, we are equipping women from twenty-two nations with market-ready skills in value addition, food safety, packaging, branding, business planning, access to finance, and climate-smart production.
This enterprise-oriented training converts agricultural potential into bankable business models by building the foundations of market trust and investability.
Trust is established through consistent hygiene practices, reliable processing methods, safe water, and proper storage, factors that matter as consumers increasingly demand food that is safe, nutritious, traceable, and convenient.
Packaging extends shelf life, protects quality, and builds consumer confidence, while licensing creates visibility, credibility, and access to institutional buyers. These are prerequisites for market integration and long-term investment.
For donors, this represents a high-leverage investment point, where relatively modest funding for skills development can unlock downstream impacts across income, nutrition, employment, and market integration.
The reason is structural. Small and medium enterprises already dominate employment and value creation in most economies.
Globally, small and medium enterprises represent 90% of all businesses and generate more than half of employment.
In India, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises are the backbone of the economy, contributing around 30% of GDP, 45% of total exports, and employing over 200 million people, many of them women.
When women control income, household nutrition improves, children’s education outcomes improve, and community resilience strengthens.
In Africa, agricultural SMEs handle nearly 80% of all food consumed and provide up to 70% of formal employment and 90% of informal jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Despite their central role, agri-SMEs face a financing gap estimated at $100 billion annually in Africa alone. This gap is not simply a shortage of capital.
It reflects gaps in enterprise readiness, compliance, and market integration that this training aims to address.
Turning local crops into safe, nutritious, affordable foods creates jobs, retains income locally, and strengthens resilience.
With education such as that provided by ICRISAT’s ITEC program, small-scale food enterprises gain the structure and capabilities required to grow.
For donors seeking high-impact, scalable, and system-level interventions, investing in skills-driven agri-preneurship is a strategic imperative.
The future of food systems is being built by the many entrepreneurs who transform crops into safe, nutritious, and affordable foods, and by institutions willing to invest in their skills, standards, and market-readiness.
Strategic donor investment can turn informal potential into formal impact.
The real question for development partners is not whether to support skills-driven agri-preneurship, but whether, as a global community, we can afford not to.