Ten start-ups with positive social and environmental impacts have just been selected out of more than 80 applications, to participate in a program co-financed by USAID – the American Agency for Development – and Miarakap, the first Malagasy investment fund . For four months, young companies will benefit from technical support and financial support. The most involved among them will be supported for another two years, to enable them to get started.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Sarah Tetaud
They want to transform seeds into natural fertilizers, agricultural waste into cooking briquettes, flies into protein flour. On Tuesday, after their selection, the entrepreneurs of start-ups with positive social and environmental impacts took part in their first day of an intensive week of mentoring. ” What did I learn? What I learned is that entrepreneurship is… »
Faced with the 10 selected, the speakers, seasoned entrepreneurs, recount their biggest failures, their mistakes, and their aggressiveness in seizing opportunities.
“Biological Pesticide”
Speeches as challenging as they are enriching and which are part of the Mitsiry program, directed at Miarakap by Koloina Ramaromandray. ” The pride of this ”accelerator” is that we have lots of projects all over the island, in regions like Tulear, Fort Dauphin, Farafangana, Manakara, all near protected areas or hot spots. of biodiversity because the objective is that: it is to conserve biodiversity. We have projects that are in many different sectors: honey, chocolate, mushrooms, cassava. Quite a variety of projects that are at very heterogeneous stages of development. There are start-ups that are just starting their activity and others that have started marketing. In general, all of them have already built the ecosystem around it and know how to source and how to produce. But some are still in the prototype phase. »
And this is the case of Adi’Gasy, the company created by Lalaina Rakotoson, at the very beginning of 2021, which plans to launch a biopesticide manufacturing plant near Morondava, to combat the caterpillars that destroy crops. ” In Madagascar, we use so many chemicals in agriculture! And since there is no strict legal framework to regulate spreading, everyone can do what they want, sell and disperse what they want. This is a real problem for the environment, and a very big danger for consumers and users of these products. And that’s how the idea of producing a biological pesticide came to me: from the seeds of the Neem tree, more commonly known as Margousier, or the “150 diseases” in Menabe, we extract oil and turn it into a biopesticide. This is a practice that is already established in India and Africa, so why not here! »
$5,000 interest-free loan
As part of the program, Lalaina and the 9 other entrepreneurs initially benefit from an interest-free loan of 5,000 dollars. ” Obviously, this Mitsiry loan is a real boost for us, says Lalaina Rakotoson. Because today, it is very difficult to have bank loans to start a start-up in Madagascar. And being accompanied by entrepreneurs who have experience allows us to move forward more quickly. »
Move more quickly to preserve what can still be of Madagascar’s biodiversity. A way to also remind that the national private sector has a real role to play in this area.