Donna Rosa
I provide customized business support for micro- and small enterprises in developing countries. I specialize in agribusiness and basic food processing.
I work directly with SMEs and MSMEs in-country. I listen, ask the right questions to gather detailed information, and then evaluate the businesses and business potential, diagnose problem areas, and develop solutions so they can become profitable. I also do training and advisory to organizations supporting smallholders. Where applicable, I emphasize value addition through agroprocessing to provide food security as well as economic independence.
Services include business plans, counseling, mentoring, market identification, market research, technical support, marketing materials, training, and workshops. The solutions are always practical and tailored to the unique needs of the business.
Donna Rosa
We absolutely need more resources devoted to postharvest loss. We are producing enough food on the planet. According to the World Food Preservation Center 95% of resources are spent on food production (enough already!) and only 5% on postharvest preservation, which by the way has a much higher ROI in terms of hunger and malnutrition. It's staggering.
We must address this from different angles, including postharvest pest control, proper planting, better transportation, low cost effective storage, and market identification/development. PICS bags have been around since the 1980s and have proven to be an elegant, simple, cost effective storage medium for beans and grain. There are also various solar cold storage solutions such as Evaptainers, just to name a couple of examples.
Another topic that doesn't get a lot of attention is the need for low cost basic agricultural equipment to improve efficiency. CTI is an NGO that manufactures small scale, inexpensive processors such as mills, threshers, and grinders that do not use electricity. Their simple machines make easy work of tasks that usually take long hours to do manually. And there's a gender componet that's also overlooked: most of this work is done by women, and freeing up their time would certainly lead to more food for their families and to sell at market, not to mention better quality of life.