The African Diaspora Marketplace contest recently awarded $50,000 to $100,000 to 14 immigrants to the United States from African countries to help them start or expand businesses in Africa. Some of them share how they plan to use the money on the New Enterprise blog.

Hunger and malnutrition are not foreign to Ethiopians. I see improvements in local farming as the best way to address these problems. My father-in-law – an Ethiopian American who teaches agriculture at Fort Valley State University in Georgia – suggested that one could contribute to these improvements in a major way by propagating quality tissue cultures selected from local edible plant stock, particularly fruit stock. With that goal in our minds, the company we jointly started – TAF Plc. – will build and operate a commercial-scale plant in Addis Ababa, which will grow and multiply select plant cells, tissues and organs in a laboratory-type environment for sale to farmers. (Later, we plan to open satellite offices in Oromia, Amhara and other regions.) A lab building already has been constructed and a small greenhouse will be ready soon. The $100,000 grant will be used to buy laboratory equipment.

So far farmers have had to rely on the government to provide them with seeds and other planting materials. But those supplies are insufficient, costly and often not of the best quality. As a result, some large farmers idle chunks of their farm lands. With foreign investors buying or leasing land for large-scale farming, demand for quality planting materials will grow tremendously.

When the company was launched three years ago, it had to gain trust of the farmers as it had no name recognition to rely on. Through the word of mouth – with support of a network of relatives and family friends – TAF has established an initial customer base. Now potential customers come to our local partner – well-connected businessman Tsega Asamere – asking him when we will open.

Our main goal is to help farmers increase crop, produce technological spill-over effect in the agriculture sector and make profits in the process. The venture also will create close to 100 jobs. In the future, TAF also wants to make a concrete contribution to sustainable economic development by producing materials for reforestation of deforested areas.

We are excited about this venture and the prospect of helping the agricultural sector in Ethiopia that represents a significant portion of the economy.