Josephine Okot

Josephine Okot

As the founder and managing director of Victoria Seeds Ltd, Josephine Okot is ably demonstrating how to develop new markets and a local private-sector agricultural inputs industry in her native Uganda. Her efforts to reverse the decline in agricultural productivity in Uganda and other countries of the region are widely acknowledged.

Okot has also taken a leadership role in lobbying for appropriate policies and an institutional framework that help to integrate the African seed sector with the global economy. Among other things, she was the first chairperson of the influential Uganda seed traders association.

Okot, who has an International Business degree from Washington International University, held a series of managerial positions in marketing and export before making a courageous decision to enter the capital-intensive seed industry in 2003. From humble beginnings with very limited capital, she has developed Victoria Seeds Ltd into a full line seed company engaged in research, production, processing, distribution and marketing. Its turnover grew from USD 800,000 in 2004 to USD 1.5 million in 2006, a 40% increase.

Victoria Seeds had increased its original four members of staff to 22 by the end of 2005. Today it employs 30 permanent and 40 non-permanent workers, 60% of whom are women. With limited mechanization, the company delivered 850,000 kgs of certified seed to farmers in 2004. This rose to 1,032,000 kgs in 2005 and 1,250,000 in 2006.

Victoria Seeds contracts over 200 growers to produce its seed, giving them employment and an assured market. The company markets over 55 seed varieties – from groundnut and pigeon pea to sesame and soybean, maize, rice, millet and sorghum to vegetable varieties like Abelmoschus, and Crucifers – providing for the needs of 25% of the smallholder farmers in Uganda.

Proclaimed Uganda’s leading woman entrepreneur  in  2006 by Business in Africa Magazine, Josephine Okot is now working to expand Victoria Seeds’ distribution capacity and network to the East and Central African regional market.  She also functions as Management Committee Co-Chair of the Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Program at FARA – the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. FARA is an umbrella organization bringing together and forming coalitions of major stakeholders in agricultural research and development in Africa.