University of Bedfordshire Business School hosted a Multiplier event on Training and Mentoring Women Entrepreneurs in Europe's Agri Food sector on 27^th February 2023. The event was part of the European Erasmus + AWARE project led by Atlantic Technological University (Ireland), in collaboration with University of Bedfordshire (UK), Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori Toscana (Italy), PROPEL Europe (Belgium), the Polish Farm Advisory and Training Centre and Macra na Feirme (Ireland).

The project aims to assess and study the needs of women living in rural areas and to support the growth of women entrepreneurs in the Agri-Food sector across Europe. This will contribute to achieving social inclusion for this group and closing the gender gap in Agri-Food entrepreneurship.

The event was organised by the AWARE project team in the business school led by Professor Yanqing Duan. Other team members include Dr Yongmei Bentley who chaired the event and Patricia Wilson.

Over 20 participants from local universities, business organisations and business start-ups attended the event. The event provided attendees with the opportunity to meet agri-food entrepreneurs, to explore the benefits of engaging with a mentor, setting up a small business or social enterprise, to understand challenges and barriers food entrepreneurs face in the current climate and to gain an insight into our guest speakers experiences.

The participants gained a real-life perspective from agri-food entrepreneurs in a panel discussion. The guest speakers were:

• Professor Paul Burns – Professor in Entrepreneurship who have researched, advised, published, and taught on this topic over 40 years.
• Abi Adefisan – Co-founder of Yumchop Foods, supplying frozen ready meals from around the world with an African twist, an entrepreneur leading business transformation.
• Winifred Soribe – Researcher at the University of Bedfordshire investigating the area of financing entrepreneurial innovation.
• Katarzyna Pelc - Project Manager of the European territorial cooperation project 'REAMIT' co-funded by Interreg North-West Europe Programme.

The participants have enjoyed the interesting talks and lively discussions in a range of live sessions. The event was very successful with many positive comments from all the participants.

'The event was very successful'

'Lovely event and very well organised'

'I enjoyed the programme and look forward to future events'

'The project overall is brilliant. However, the practical activities could be added'

'Making women aware of the importance of agri-food industry. In the era of digital technology and AI agriculture may be very important and profitable sector to work in.

'Need to pique women interest towards this sector'

'More events like this, so we can learn from different perspective'

For more information about the AWARE project please visit:

Current projects - AWARE