What if the only way to build a business farmers actually want is to shut up, sit down, and have 500 conversations first?

In this episode of Tomorrow's Bites, we sit down with Innocent Ociti, founder of Kicente EcoLogic in Uganda a former humanitarian worker who left the offices of UNDP to go village by village, garden by garden, learning what smallholder farmers actually need. Not what they say in groups. Not what shows up in reports. What they reveal over a local brew when their guard finally comes down.

What Innocent built is not a typical agri-input business. It's a farmer-led distribution network where communities appoint their own trusted experts, organic inputs are tested in demo gardens before they ever reach a field, and credit is extended so farmers can pay after harvest. It took counterfeit seeds wiping out two sub-counties' worth of maize to show him where to begin and 500 individual conversations to show him how.

We explore:

Why talking to farmer groups taught Innocent almost nothing and what changed the moment he walked into their gardens
How two entire seasons were lost selling the right inputs the wrong way
Why farmers don't buy because of health benefits and what they actually care about
How communities, not founders, should choose who leads a farmer network
What it costs to build trust in a place where agriculture is still seen as the last resort
Why 500 one-on-one conversations is the bare minimum before you think you understand a market

This is a story about deep listening as a business strategy and what happens when someone from the outside earns the right to belong.

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😊 The Guest: Innocent (Olur) Ociti

Innocent: He Went to Uganda's Villages And 500 Conversations Later, He Built a Business Farmers Actually Want with Innocent (Olur) Ociti founder Kicente EcoLogic

Tomorrow's Bites with Andrés and Sjacco

Innocent: He Went to Uganda's Villages And 500 Conversations Later, He Built a Business Farmers Actually Want with Innocent (Olur) Ociti founder Kicente EcoLogic