Business Model Canvas Training: Nurturing entrepreneurial spirit

Indonesia has experienced the growing of specialty coffee and craft chocolate businesses in the past decade. Locally sourced coffee beans are now one of the customers’ favourites at local coffee shops. While, Indonesia’s artisanal chocolate companies start taking pride in local sourcing. The growing market also shows that businesses pay greater attention to customer expectation and satisfaction. What does it mean for farmers who Rikolto works with?

Working in the cocoa and coffee sector for almost 20 years, I see the opportunity for farmers to strive and thrive in this “third wave” coffee and chocolate movement. Our past and current interventions focus on empowering farmers and farmer organisations through a wide array of strategies, that -most times- are beyond technical assistance. Our capacity building activities are human development-centred; by creating space for farmers to gradually transform into entrepreneurs.

We invest in activities that nurture entrepreneurial and leadership skills, so farmers can seize business opportunities in the agriculture value chain. In this context, Rikolto, Village Government of Polewali Mandar District and Indonesia Peasant Alliance (API) carried out Business Model Canvas Training in 3 districts (Polewali Mandar, Majene, and Mamuju) in West Sulawesi Province.

Training participants are staffs of BUMDes (Village-owned Enterprises) and members of Rikolto's cooperative partner. Our collaboration with BUMDes is part of our strategies to ensure programme sustainability. As a social and commercial institution, BUMDes has a mission to improve rural livelihoods, through the development, promotion and marketing of local products. As the commercial institution, BUMDes aims to make profit by offering local resources (goods and services) to the market. If managed professionally, BUMDes can benefit farmers and village government significantly through the sales of value-added goods and services.

At the moment, BUMDes has not performed optimally due to various reasons, one of which is the lack of capacity among BUMDes managers in creating profitable business. Business Model Canvas (BMC) Training aims to provide BUMDes with recommendation on how to foster entrepreneurial spirit and develop business plans that are responsive to external changes.

I have received positive feedback from the participants regarding the training. Mustamin, a staff from BUMDes in Polewali Mandar told me that he found the training applicable and easy to follow and with his gained knowledge, he will sit together with his colleagues to develop a business plan.

Moving forward, the participants intend to do the following:

• Cooperative and BUMDes will review their existing business plans

• Village government will further discuss the feasibility to allocate village fund for BUMDes

• Participants will pass on the knowledge to their colleagues