Amina Okello

Amina started hand-pollinating vanilla vines in Gulu in 2016 after a cooperative training programme, at a time when most of Northern Uganda's vanilla went unharvested for lack of buyers.

Her curing method — five months of sweating, sunning and conditioning — produces pods with vanillin content well above commodity grade, and her double harvest calendar lets her offer near year-round supply.

"Before AgriBridge I sold vanilla to middlemen at a third of the price," she says. "Last season I shipped 400kg straight to a buyer in Lyon." She now mentors eight other women farmers in her cooperative on pollination technique.