One of the resources that Africa is endowed with is the natural resource of which forestry is part. However, many young ones have centered their career on white-collar jobs, leaving the forestry business for the ageing group. But Yvonne, a young lady, is charting a different path. She has decided to use sustainable means to tap into the country’s forestry and agriculture to earn a living and create employment for others. Read how she is doing this as she narrates her story to the B&FT’s Inspiring Startups.

Yvonne Odame-Nti has a background in natural resource and climate change. She is a product of the Kumasi Girls Senior High School. She holds a degree in Natural Resource from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Then she had a scholarship to do her second degree in Climate Change and Development at the University of Sussex, UK, in 2012. From there she worked in Geneva for the United Nations for some time and came back to Ghana to pursue a passion she has developed for years— protecting the environment through eco-friendly and sustainable agriculture.

But before then, she worked with the Kumasi Institute of Technology and Environment (KITE) and as a research assistant for a former Minister of Environment. In 2016, she felt the time was right for her to start her own business.

The beginning

Yvonne’s business dates back to the lecture hall in 2009 while she was still a university student. In one of their presentations in class which centered on reforestation projects being done in Ghana, she became aware that people supply seedlings to the Forestry Commission for the project. It struck her that she can also be among the people who supply such seedlings. With guidelines from her lecturer, she decided to engage in nursery of seedlings for timber. After registering her business with the name Y&M Regeneration Ltd, she got a contract from the Forestry Commission to supply seedlings under a programme dubbed ‘The National Plantation Development Programme’.

In 2010, she moved a step further by adding plantation to her business. But all these were on a very small scale as she didn’t have the time to commit fully to it. So, in 2016, she finally made the decision to leave her job and focus on her own business fulltime.

As it stands now, the company has expanded from nursing timber seedlings to planting cash crops using modern methods that do not harm the environment. Today, Y&M Regeneration Ltd owns 480 hectares of timber plantation (teak, mahogany, ofram, gmelina, etc), 20 acres of cashew, and 10 acres of maize farm, and other vegetable farms. The annual production for both the timber and cash crop nurseries is around 1 million seedlings. Again, she has provided direct employment for seven other people.

She also has implemented the Integrated Biomass Project— a sustainable means of producing and using charcoal. Then, she has initiated what she calls ‘Edu 4 SDG’ which facilitates the planting of trees in schools to promote sustainable development. Yes, that is how far a business that has its roots from the lecture hall has grown.