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Christian Young Sing, Founder and CEO of Epilimnion Aquaculture Ltd: A pioneer in hydroponic agriculture in Trinidad and Tobago

Christian Young Sing's journey as an entrepreneur is rooted in technical knowledge, innovation and a commitment to local food production.Trained in Aquaculture at Vancouver Island University in Canada, Christian gained experience working on the Commercial Recirculating Aquaculture System at the Institute of Marine Affairs in Trinidad and Tobago.In 2012, he founded EPILIMNION Aquaculture Ltd., which operates under the brand CRISP. The company produces baby greens, microgreens, culinary herbs and edible flowers for Trinidad and Tobago's retail and food service industries.Over the past 13 years, CRISP has established itself as the first mover in microgreens in Trinidad and Tobago. Today, the company operates a 5,000-square-foot hybrid facility in Cascade, comprising an outdoor hydroponic Nutrient Film Technique greenhouse and an indoor climate-controlled production room. With a team of five employees, CRISP supplies major grocery chains and more than 60 HORECA accounts directly.The company gained commercial traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it provided a local alternative to imported produce, supporting Trinidad and Tobago's food import substitution agenda.As demand for its products grows, Christian is now focused on the next stage of the company's development. COLEAD through FFM + programme provided technical assistance to EPILIMNION to support the optimisation and expansion of its greenhouse operations under tropical conditions.The mission assessed the company's existing infrastructure and production systems and developed recommendations for improving ventilation, shading, humidity management and environmental monitoring. It also included a preliminary expansion design for hydroponic lettuce production, as well as investment and operating cost estimates and a financial model. The support provides EPILIMNION with a roadmap for improving the efficiency of its production systems and preparing for future growth.Christian's entrepreneurial journey demonstrates how technical training and practical experience can lead to new opportunities. From his background in aquaculture to founding one of Trinidad and Tobago's pioneering microgreens businesses, he has built CRISP over more than a decade through innovation and a commitment to developing local food production.As EPILIMNION prepares for its next stage of development, Christian Young Sing is ready to lead the company into its next chapter, continuing the pioneering work that has helped shape Trinidad and Tobago's hydroponic agriculture sector.This activity is supported by the Fit For Market Plus (FFM+) programme, implemented by COLEAD within the Framework of Development Cooperation between the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the European Union. This publication receives financial support from the European Union and the OACPS. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of COLEAD and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union or the OACPS.

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Mwangi Muturi: From Banking to Fresh Herb and Vegetable Exports

For Mwangi Muturi, agriculture gradually became more than an interest it became a new entrepreneurial path. After 11 years in the banking sector, where he developed experience in client management and business performance, Mwangi moved into the technology sector, becoming CEO of Best Buys Technologies in 2013. These experiences strengthened his skills in sales, marketing and identifying new markets—skills he would later bring into agriculture. In 2017, he founded Lusoi Greens Limited, a family-run agribusiness in Kenya.From the beginning, Mwangi focused on connecting Kenyan production with international markets. Lusoi Greens started by growing and exporting fresh herbs, including basil, mint, rosemary, thyme and oregano, cultivated in Kenya’s highlands in open fields and greenhouses. The company has built its export activities around quality and compliance with international standards, including GLOBALG.A.P. and GRASP.As the business developed, Lusoi Greens expanded beyond herbs into vegetables. In 2021, the company began growing and exporting vegetables and now focuses on products such as chillies, sugar snap peas and snow peas. The company currently reports an annual production capacity of 120 metric tonnes for herbs and 200 metric tonnes for vegetables. Its products are exported to Europe and the Middle East, supported by a cold-chain system and partnerships with logistics providers that facilitate regular air shipments.This evolution has allowed Lusoi Greens to build a broader fresh-produce business while maintaining its focus on quality and international market requirements. The company continues to present itself as a family-run grower, packer and exporter, with its operations based at Lusoi Farm in Central Kenya. Its current product range includes several varieties of fresh herbs alongside its expanding vegetable portfolio.The company has also benefited from COLEAD (through FFM+ programme) support to strengthen both its business and operational capacities, including an investor-readiness assessment and assistance in developing and monitoring a bankable business plan to support access to finance. This was complemented by training and technical assistance on areas including HACCP, BRCGS, crop protection and the safe use of pesticides, helping the company strengthen its readiness to meet market requirements and pursue its growth ambitions.Mwangi Muturi also shared his entrepreneurial experience during PAFO–COLEAD Innovation Session No. 8, which explored how investment can help catalyse the growth of young African agrifood businesses.This activity is supported by the Fit For Market Plus (FFM+) programme, implemented by COLEAD within the Framework of Development Cooperation between the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the European Union. This publication receives financial support from the European Union and the OACPS. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of COLEAD and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union or the OACPS.

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Join the movement. On 3 December, it takes its first steps, with you. COLEAD opens its Consultative Committee to its whole community, online, from 14:30 to 17:30

COLEAD Consultative Committee meeting, Thursday 3 December 2026, 14:30–17:30 (Brussels time), online. Open to COLEAD members, colleagues, partners and friends, and to anyone wishing to contribute to the sustainable and inclusive transformation of food systemsUntil now, the Consultative Committee meeting was an appointment for COLEAD’s members. This year it is open to the entire community, and beyond it to anyone who wants to take part in the sustainable and inclusive transformation of food systems. That is the point of the 2030 Strategy: to turn COLEAD, step by step, into an open, inclusive and engaged movement that brings people and organisations together. The meeting will be held online on Thursday 3 December 2026, from 14:30 to 17:30 Brussels time, and it is where that movement takes its first visible steps.Three milestones in one afternoonThe official launch of Fit For Market Africa (FFM Africa), a new programme funded by the European Union that will contribute, in particular, to the implementation of the Global Gateway strategy and to strengthening European private investment in Africa’s agrifood sector.The key results and lessons learned from Fit For Market Plus (FFM+), as the programme draws to a close.The first steps taken towards implementing the 2030 Strategy, which sets out to progressively transform COLEAD into an open, inclusive and engaged movement bringing people and organisations together.A space for dialogue, not just a programmeBeyond these highlights, the afternoon is designed as a space for dialogue, active listening and collective engagement. The ambition set for 2030 depends on one thing: the ability to bring together people, expertise and initiatives to drive the transformation of food systems, in Africa and beyond. The participation and perspectives of everyone who joins on 3 December are part of what will make that momentum real.Register, and pass it onRegistration is open Register now. The invitation can be shared freely with individuals and organisations interested in contributing to this collective effort. For any questions: association@colead.link.Thursday 3 December 2026 | 14:30–17:30 (Brussels time) | Online participation

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Benin: the pineapple sector prepares its public-private dialogue

In Lokossa, the sector’s consultation framework put forward two recommendations that pave the way for the national PRCC workshopOn 15 and 16 October 2026, in Lokossa, the consultation and synergy framework of Benin’s pineapple sector stakeholders held its session, coordinated by the Territorial Agency for Agricultural Development of Pole 7 (ATDA-Pôle 7). Forty-two participants took part: the professional organisations of producers and processors, the interprofessional body, and the public support structures – the ATDAs of Poles 4 to 7, the departmental agriculture directorates, ABSSA, INRAB, DPV, PACOFIDE and SoNaMA. COLEAD was there, under the PRCC, with one objective: to prepare with these stakeholders the national workshop on public-private dialogue planned for the coming months. Rather than arriving with a ready-made agenda, the team worked through the body where the sector already meets.A campaign plan, and a maturity gridThe work covered the follow-up of the recommendations of the first session, the assessment of the 2026-2027 campaign plan and the drafting of the 2027-2028 plan. COLEAD presented the PRCC and its approach to public-private dialogue, in particular the grid it uses to assess the maturity of a consultation framework along four dimensions.Two recommendations that prepare the workshopAmong the session’s recommendations, two echo the findings of the PRCC study on blocking factors and are of direct interest to the programme. The first: strengthening the regulation of pineapple exports, by formalising European market requirements and drawing up proposals to better structure exports. The second: strengthening interprofessional dialogue, with a roadmap that will set two to three priority actions by February 2027.On the sidelines of the session, a meeting with the new Director General of ATDA-Pôle 7 covered COLEAD’s support to the consultation framework and the preparation of the national workshop. It is now up to the ATDA to designate a focal point, confirm the priority sanitary and phytosanitary issue, propose a window for the workshop between November 2026 and March 2027, and send a list of participants representative of the public and private sectors.Public-private dialogue, one of the PRCC’s four objectivesFinanced by the French Development Agency (AFD) from January 2025 to December 2027, the PRCC is an additional financing component of the Fit For Market programmes, continuing the work of FFM, FFM SPS and FFM+, and active in seven countries: Benin, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo. Alongside market access, the strengthening of professional organisations and support services, and the adoption of sustainable practices, its fourth objective is to identify, through structured dialogue between public authorities and the private sector, the factors that limit access to the European market, so that they can be prioritised. The Benin workshop falls under this strand; the Lokossa session is its first step.This activity is supported by the PRCC (Trade Capacity Building Programme), implemented by COLEAD, with financial support from the French Republic through the French Development Agency (AFD). This communication has been produced with the financial support of AFD. Its content is the sole responsibility of COLEAD and can in no way be taken to reflect the position of AFD.

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Côte d’Ivoire: thirty stakeholders met in two weeks, from Abidjan to Bouaké. The PASA programme is collecting support requests from cooperatives and SMEs in the field, ahead of its first support activities in early 2027

For a food safety programme, support requests are not something to wait for at a desk: they are gathered on vegetable plots and in processing units. After a first year spent on procedures, governance and the choice of value chains [horticulture and artisanal fisheries], PASA-Côte d’Ivoire, the food safety programme funded by the European Union and implemented by COLEAD, is now in its operational phase. Its team therefore spent two weeks in the field, from 27 September to 10 October. Between Abidjan, Yamoussoukro, Bouaké and Tiébissou, it met some thirty stakeholders: competent authorities, support and extension bodies, vegetable growers’ cooperatives, women processing agricultural and fish products, traders, apex organisations, research centres and partner projects.The same findings, meeting after meetingStakeholders are aware of the food safety issue and confirm that the programme is relevant; it is practices that are slow to change. Pre-harvest intervals are hard to respect on crops picked several times a week, such as okra. After harvest, vegetables are left on the ground, rarely sorted, and cartons are damaged in transport. One finding helps explain the others: sanitary control exists for exports but is virtually too absent on local markets, which gives little incentive to change. Lastly, management remains the weak point of organisations: governance, basic bookkeeping and knowledge of production costs are often lacking.Initiatives to build onThe field also revealed stakeholders who are ahead of the curve: the collection centre run by the Regional Union of Vegetable Growers of Gbêkè (URMAG), agroecological practices in vegetable production, and entrepreneurs asking for trials so they can produce “residue-free”.Multiplying the training effortTo reach growers well beyond those a single team can meet, the programme will work through organisations that already have extension networks and trainers. With the National Rural Development Support Agency (ANADER), a provisional action plan provides for training of trainers, notably on good hygiene practices and the safe use of pesticides, and for information about the programme to be relayed to cooperatives through ANADER’s nationwide network. Other synergies are taking shape: joint training of trainers and shared good-practice guides with the EU twinning project supporting the veterinary services; the mobilisation of expertise for cooperatives with the Centre for Rural Management and Economics (CGER Centre) and the Interprofessional Fund for Agricultural Research and Advisory Services (FIRCA); and, with the National Federation of Traders of Côte d’Ivoire (FENACCI), a local public-private consultation framework on food safety that could become a model for public-private dialogue.What happens next?The support requests collected during the mission are now being analysed. The aim is to have identified, by the end of November, all the relevant cooperatives and SMEs, so that the first collective and tailored support activities can start in early 2027.This activity is implemented by COLEAD and supported by the Food Safety Support Programme for the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire (PASA-Côte d’Ivoire), funded by the European Union through the EU Delegation in Côte d’Ivoire. This communication has been produced with the financial support of the EU. Its contents are the sole responsibility of COLEAD and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the EU.

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COLEAD — COmmittee Linking for Entrepreneurship, Agriculture and Development — works towards the sustainable transformation of food value chains, particularly horticultural ones, in countries and regions where development needs are greatest.

An international not-for-profit association founded in 1973, COLEAD brings together farmers, businesses, professional organisations, technical partners and public institutions around one conviction: the sustainable transformation of food systems rests on the economic viability of food value chains, the essential condition for their social and environmental sustainability.

COLEAD is ISO 21001 certified. This certification is a management system standard designed specifically for educational organisations. It covers vocational training in sustainable agriculture and demonstrates COLEAD’s commitment to developing skills and expertise in this field through education, learning and research.

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Series · Portraits

Those who
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A curated selection of agrinnovators around the world — women and men transforming their value chains, territories, and communities.

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