Strengthening farmer outreach in Rwanda through the TUBURA Agri-entrepreneurship program 

From 4–9 June, SAF-Africa visited Rwanda’s Southern Province to engage with Field Officers and programme leaders under the TUBURA Agri-Entrepreneurship Program, implemented in partnership with One Acre Fund. Through field visits, focus group discussions with 109 Field Officers across Ruhango and Kamonyi Districts, site assessments, and consultations with departmental leads, the team explored how a new Field Officer-led Demand Activation and Farmer Outreach Model is strengthening farmer engagement and improving access to agricultural products and services. The initiative aims to transform Field Officers into entrepreneurial market leaders capable of driving farmer adoption, building trust, and creating more sustainable last-mile delivery systems.

This initiative is reimaging 60 Field Officers from input distributors into commercially driven leaders of farmer outreach and demand creation. Through focused mentorship they are gaining the skills and tools to drive farmer acquisition, product adoption, repayment, and retention while improving site-level performance. The program targets full certification, at least 90% coaching compliance, and strong, validated outreach plans across all sites. Ultimately, resulting to higher farmer conversion, stronger retention and repeat purchases, and improved contribution margins fueling sustainable growth and better farmer livelihoods.

“Field Officers play a vital role in connecting farmers to agricultural services, yet many are expected to balance extension support, sales, credit management, inventory oversight, data collection, and farmer training with limited access to market intelligence, and site level performance management systems. The TUBURA Agri-Entrepreneurship Program was designed to address this gap.” Comments Jane Chapia, Project Coordinator, TUBURA.

“SAF-Africa’s approach combines training, coaching, and performance monitoring through a three-stage capability-building model. The first phase focuses on entrepreneurial mindset, commercial strategy, demand planning, and market intelligence. The second strengthens farmer outreach, sales funnel management, and demonstration-to-sales conversion. The final phase focuses on site-level performance optimization through adaptive coaching, data use, and unit economics tracking.” Adds Faith Mbuguah, SAF-A’s Agri-entrepreneurship Development Lead.

Field visits have already revealed important insights. Farmer adoption is often influenced less by awareness than by affordability, trust, and timing. Field Officers who build strong relationships are more successful at converting interest into purchases and retaining customers, while weak engagement often leads farmers to seek alternatives elsewhere. The program also reinforces an important lesson: strong commercial strategies only succeed when paired with effective farmer outreach framework and consistent farmer engagement.

To support implementation, Field Officers will participate in intensive two phased bootcamps, biweekly coaching sessions, quarterly learning reviews, and real-time KPI tracking. These systems help translate training into measurable performance improvements. By strengthening frontline agricultural leadership, this initiative is building a more responsive, commercially sustainable, and farmer-centered “last-mile” delivery model. 

SAF-A will kick off with an outreach-focused Field Officer’s bootcamp, then move into operationalizing those systems on the ground. From there it’s field-based coaching and handholding to tighten outreach quality, build follow-up discipline, and get conversion management right.