Across Africa, agrifood systems are under growing pressure. Climate shocks, limited access to finance, fragile infrastructure, and market volatility continue to undermine food security and farmers’ livelihoods. At the same time, agriculture remains the backbone of many African economies, employing over 60% of the workforce and representing a key opportunity for inclusive growth when supported by innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainable business models. Strengthening agrifood value chains — from production to processing and market access — is therefore essential to improving food security, nutrition, and income generation for smallholder farmers.
Nicholas Rukundo, an #E4ImpactEntrepreneur and MBA alumnus from the 9th edition in Uganda, is working in this direction through his company. He is the co-founder of Nestar Supplies Limited, which operates at the intersection of crop production, dairy farming, and agrifood systems transformation. The company provides innovative, effective, and reliable solutions that maximise quality, efficiency, and profitability for farmers.
“The E4Impact MBA experience reshaped the way I think and make decisions, both personally and professionally. Learning alongside other entrepreneurs, engaging in practical modules on business modelling, strategy, finance and pitching, and interacting with experienced facilitators strengthened my ability to plan, communicate and implement business ideas. Today, I am actively applying this knowledge to scale my business and its impact.”
Let’s learn more about Nicholas by having a look at the interview we conducted with him.
1. How was your business idea born?
After more than ten years of experience working with a multinational company, I felt a strong desire to build a social enterprise that could directly support smallholder farmers. Together with my business partner, John Ouma, we founded Nestar Supplies Limited with the aim of empowering farmers by sharing the technical knowledge and professional skills I had acquired over the years.
We started by collaborating with coffee farmers in Eastern, Southern and Mid-Western Uganda, promoting good agricultural practices, aggregating coffee at fair farm-gate prices and developing local coffee roasting for the East African regional market. This initial experience helped us understand the structural challenges within agrifood systems and motivated us to expand our activities across crop and livestock value chains.
2. Could you share a general framework of the services, activities, solutions and/or benefits that your business has provided over the last years?
Over the past years, Nestar Supplies Limited has focused on supporting smallholder farmers across multiple agrifood value chains in Uganda. In the coffee sector, we collaborate with more than 1,000 farmers to promote climate-smart agriculture, provide coffee roasting services and facilitate access to international markets for green coffee beans.
In parallel, we connect farmers to markets for other crops such as maize, soybeans and apiary products. In the livestock sector, through our collaboration with Milkline Italy, we provide innovative dairy technologies, including milking systems and milk cooling solutions. More than 1,000 dairy cooperative farmers in the South and Mid-Western Uganda cattle corridor have already been profiled as potential beneficiaries.
We also support livestock nutrition by facilitating access to high-protein maize-based feeds through a network of feed mill processors and aggregators across the country.
3. What made you choose the E4I MBA Program?
I joined the E4Impact MBA to scale up my business, explore new opportunities and strengthen my strategic and managerial skills. I was also motivated by the possibility of expanding my professional network and learning how to generate measurable impact within my community through a sustainable business approach.
4. Which are the main achievements in the last 3 years and the main desired goals in the next 3 years?
One of our main achievements has been building strong collaborations with over 1,000 coffee farmers. Our next major goal is to secure a reliable green coffee buyer in Italy, Uganda’s leading coffee export destination. We aim to position Nestar Supplies Limited as an active contributor to this growing trade relationship within the next three years.
In the dairy sector, we have successfully established a partnership with Milkline Italy to introduce innovative dairy technologies in Africa. Our objective is to enable at least 3,240 dairy farmers in the Uganda cattle corridor to access milking trolleys and complementary solutions within the next three years. We are also working towards collaborations to introduce solar-powered milk cooling systems, which would significantly improve milk quality, farmers’ incomes and nutritional outcomes.
5. Which main challenges were you experiencing in your business, if any?
The main challenge has been limited access to agricultural finance and development partners willing to collaborate through grants or blended finance mechanisms. Such partnerships are essential to de-risk investments and scale solutions for smallholder farmers in both crop and livestock production.
Another challenge has been acquiring the right knowledge and tools to effectively address agrifood systems transformation. I addressed this gap by enrolling in the E4Impact MBA and complementary programmes in agricultural leadership, which enabled me to align my business strategy with food security, nutrition and sustainability goals.
6. Could you tell us a particular satisfactory moment you had in your entrepreneurial activity?
One of the most satisfying moments was realizing our ability to pivot and address livestock nutrition as a key component of food security. While working on solutions to import and distribute dairy technologies from Italy, we identified an opportunity to improve animal nutrition through high-protein feeds, thereby strengthening the entire dairy value chain and improving the quality and safety of milk for households and markets.
7. What impact have you seen in your environment, and what impact do you aim to create for your beneficiaries in the future?
So far, we have enabled five feed mill processors to supply high-protein feeds, supported twelve livestock feed aggregators serving smallholder farmers, and built a growing database of potential partners and customers.
Looking ahead, our goal is to provide innovative dairy technologies to at least 3,240 qualifying dairy farmers by 2027, while strengthening collaborations with private sector partners to expand access to sustainable and climate-resilient solutions across Uganda and beyond.
8. In your opinion, what are the main qualities an entrepreneur should have?
In my view, the most important qualities are passion, integrity, resilience and the ability to collaborate and build strong networks.
9. Is there a person you are inspired by, i.e. an entrepreneur or a particular mentor?
I am inspired by Dr. Aliko Dangote, particularly for his ability to scale businesses across multiple sectors and countries while creating significant economic impact across Africa.
10. Finally, what would you suggest to a new-born entrepreneur?
I would encourage new entrepreneurs to look closely at the agrifood systems sector as a powerful entry point to address food security and food sovereignty. Africa offers immense opportunities across agriculture, agro-processing, manufacturing, services, tourism and technology. Young entrepreneurs should know their purpose, act with integrity, collaborate with the right partners and take action without delay.
