ALAN impact story

Game-based learning for farmers

Across Africa, millions of smallholder farmers struggle to improve their resilience and incomes. Amongst many other challenges, farmers often lack the business knowledge and skills to realise the full potential of their farms.

Kucheza is an innovative game-based training programme that uses a digital simulation of a smallholder farm to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, increase financial literacy, and improve collaboration among farmers. It equips trainers with tools combining theory and practice to facilitate behaviour change towards ecologically sustainable food systems. So far Kucheza has trained a variety of audiences, from university students to smallholder farmers with low literacy.

Network members training local youth on agribusiness using the Kucheza game.

In June 2021, Aldred Dogue worked with fellow AL for Agribusiness (ALAN) members to develop the Kucheza programme to teach young people in his community to understand and appreciate agriculture.

Kucheza and ALAN partnered in 2022 to offer a 4-month Kucheza trainer programme to network members to offer the programme within their communities.

Topics included business planning, financial literacy, risk management, marketing, costing and pricing, cash flow management, and calculating results and investments. Outcomes of the trainings included:

• 189 participants across Uganda, Zambia, Cameroon and South Africa.

   

• 20 separate training sessions across the 4 countries, with more than 60 hours of programme delivery.

The Kucheza and ALAN partnership demonstrates the power of the network to catalyse collaboration and bring knowledge and skills to local communities and improve rural futures.