Agri Planner
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Why Agri Planner?
Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods
Sustainable community development must aim to mobilise and empower communities with the skills, strategies, tools and self- confidence to care for themselves and their future generations in a sustainable fashion. As such, the aim should not be to simply “give” to communities in the traditional sense, but rather to teach them strategies for growth and sustainability. In this way communities are provided with the social, psychological, emotional and intellectual support they need to ensure their long-term sustainability – and even prosperity – whilst also providing the right community environment within which children and youth (including Aids orphans) can flourish and thrive.
Economic Empowerment
There are a number of key national Non-Governmental Organisations providing community development and skills training programmes with a view to promoting sustainable livelihood practices and household food security. Many of these focus on the issue of food security, food production and permaculture training programmes so as to ensure that households are able to feed themselves. However, few of them are able to provide the entrepreneurial skills training necessary to facilitate the economic growth of these “back garden” community food gardens from a source of food security to a source of wealth and economic prosperity.
Growing Entrepreneurial Communities
The South African Institute for Entrepreneurship has received a growing
number of requests from various food production organisations for an
additional “sector specific” training module that would specifically look
at how to use food, food production and food related services in the
pursuit of business ventures that could become commercially
successful and contribute to economic growth and prosperity. This
would enable people to take the first steps from basic subsistence
(food security) to initial income generation and then on to full viable
business development.
AgriPlanner as a Solution
SAIE has now developed an appropriate and tested agriculture specific training programme, AgriPlanner, to supplement the BEST simulation training. It provides the training (train-the-trainer training) and training materials to these organizations so as to build their internal capacity and ability to deliver a more holistic programme in the future. As part of the training and follow up process, the Institute participates in the initial community training programmes undertaken by each of these organizations with appropriate follow-up to test and/or refine the efficacy of the training tool. In this way, SAIE believes it will add significantly to the job creation and income generation efforts of these initiatives, and contribute to growth and prosperity in the country as a whole.
Developing the AgriPlanner Partnership
Coronation Fund Managers has made the development of AgriPlanner
possible and has worked closely with the creative development team at
the South African Institute for Entrepreneurship to provide this
programme to communities.
Coronation Fund Managers has been actively involved in a number of
projects aimed at empowering individuals over its 12-year history. The
Coronation Growing Entrepreneurs Programme, launched in mid- 2004,
is a manifestation of this commitment to uplifting ordinary South
Africans and their communities. Through the development of
entrepreneurship, individuals, families and entire communities are
equipped with the skills necessary to empower sustainable
programmes that will create long-term employment and business
success.
What is AgriPlanner?
AgriPlanner helps emerging growers and farmers go beyond the practicalities of merely growing produce. AgriPlanner is all about working out a plan of What to do and When to do it. Growers learn how to get the most productive use out of their land as well as how much money their land could produce for them, if they use it well.
What does AgriPlanner achieve?
Growers will leave being able to answer questions such as:
- How much money can we make from our land?
- What can we plant? When can we plant it?
- How can we keep our land productive for the whole year?
- How much money do we need to get going?
- How much money can we make each month from our land?
How does it work?
Participants are divided into 3 teams which each attempt to run an effective gri-enterprise as part of a game simulation. Each team, allocated 10 plots of 100 square metres, discusses and decides what to grow and when to plant.
AgriPlanner starts off simply to get the basics in place. It progresses through different levels, each taking between 2 to 4 hours to play and process. As each level is mastered, layers of further complexity are added. Each new level builds on the learnings of the previous ones. Teams build up to being able to use planning systems, charts and tools that they will use to plan their own growing activities on their own land.
What method does AgriPlanner use?
AgriPlanner uses lots of discussion and talking to get each team to
decide the best action to take to deal with each new tricky situation
that arises. Each team will need at least one person who can fill in
simple forms to keep a record of the team’s decisions and progress.
As the game modules are highly participatory with most of the
discussions happening in the home-language of learners, the
programme is particularly accessible to participants who have had little
formal schooling. Some experience in growing is useful.
How long does it take?
- Each of the 8 levels requires a session of between 2 and 4 hours
- The entire programme can be completed in 18 to 20 hours
- The Training of Trainers Course is 5 days long.
What training materials are supplied?
- A re-usable AgriPlanner Facilitator’s kit
- AgriPlanner Workbooks (one per learner).
Who is it for?
- NGOs providing community based skills training programmes
- Department of Agriculture
- Community growers and farmers
- Schools Learners.
Course Content
Download our Agriculture course matrix for more information on all the courses we have developed / are busy developing...
AgriPlanner has 8 different levels. Each new level builds on the earlier ones. This page shows each level and its key learning points.Level 1: What will we plan to grow?
- Level 2: How much land can we cope with?
- Level 3: What will everything cost?
- Level 4: Do we have enough money to do everything?
- Level 5: How do we cope with unexpected problems?
- Level 6: Where are the best options to sell our products?
- Level 7: How do we get everything running smoothly?
- Level 8: How do we use Agri Planner for our own land?
Level 1: What will we plan to grow?
- What to plant in each month according to the Regional Planting Schedule
- How to plan the sequence of planting for the most productive fields (leaving as few gaps as possible)
- Understanding and using the principles of crop rotation and following the “Heavy”, “Medium”, “Light” feeder sequence
- Planning the sequence of crops to make sure that something
Level 2: Hhow much land can we cope with?
- The difference between using “time taken” and “outputs achieved” as a measure of work
- How to plan the sequence of planting to produce something every month
- Analysing and understanding the different Jobs and Tasks that need to be done
- Recognising that time and effort need to be allocated to getting the products sold
- How much work capacity each group has available to use
- How to put their people resources to best use
- How a lack of capacity holds people back from what they would like to be able to do.
Level 3: What will everything cost?
- The different costs that need to be covered when growing crops
- How much it will cost to plant each different variety
- How to plan the rate of planting so that not too many costs are incurred before the first harvest.
Level 4: Do we have enough money to do
everthing?
- How to use a Monthly Planning Sheet to plan work, plantings and the flow of money
- How to plan the outflow of money so that resources will last until the first income arrives
- Use a system to know how much money you have, are owed, and need to pay at any time
- Planning what to plant each month so that the planting plan can be afforded.
Level 5: How do we cope with unexpected
problems?
- How to make provision for the unexpected by not using all resources immediately but keeping some in reserve
- How good crop rotation can save a lot of extra work and money.
Level 6: Where are the best options to seel our
products?
- How important it is to allocate time and effort to building market opportunities
- Deciding how to divide energy between growing and marketing activities
- How to build growing relationships with the market
- How to get the best possible income from crops
- How growing the same things as everyone else leads to more competition and lower prices
- How growing different products to everyone else can lead to better prices.
Level 7: How do we get everthing running
smoothly?
- Planning month-by-month planting and day-by-day activities schedules
- Planning payments and income on a daily basis
- Understanding and applying a Daily Record Keeping system that can be used for planning the participant’s own growing plans.
Level 8: How do we use Agri Planner for our own
land?
Each participant learns how to work out:
- the size of their own plots in square metres.
- a full year’s use of their plots with any range of crops.
- the required number of plants per square metre and per plot for any plant variety.
- the total costs of planting and growing any crop in any size field.
- the yields and possible income per month of any planned planting.
