Agriterra is a Dutch umbrella organisation for international cooperation that was founded in 1997 by civil society organisations in rural areas and the agricultural private sector including the Dutch rural women’s organisation, the National Cooperative Council for Agriculture and Horticulture, and the Dutch Agricultural Youth Organisation. Agriterra aims to stimulate, support and finance international cooperation between rural people’s organisations in the Netherlands and those in developing countries.

Agriterra together with Business in Development (BiD) Network Foundation organises a business plan competition for agricultural cooperatives and farmer associations.  Cooperatives and farmers associations are invited to submit a business plan, to get support from a coach to work out the plan, to win a business trip to the Netherlands, to compete for a prize and to find investors for the start up or expansion. The first price is the financing of € 15.000. The main goal of the competition is to collect business plans and to develop contacts between the cooperatives and banks and investors who will be interested in supporting these projects. Deadline for submission of the business plans is 15 November 2009.

With this initiative, BiD and Agriterra want to encourage the farmers to create agricultural companies and to improve the ones that already exist. The contest is aimed at small and medium sized entrepreneurs seeking finance to build up a company or to make their company grow. The target group of this contest is made up from cooperatives and farmers associations in developing countries. 

 Download a promotion flyer of this business plan competition. For more information, please check  www.bidnetwork.org/agriterra