The Nation Newspaper

Tag: agri-business

  • EU boosts agri-business in Nigeria, others with €45m

    The European Union (EU) has announced the provision of 45 million Euros to support smallholder agri-businesses in rural areas in Nigeria and other African countries.

    The EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, made this known during the inauguration of the support fund in Rome.

    The support, known as the new Agri-Business Capital (ABC) Fund, would help deliver on the Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investments and Jobs.

    At the launch, organised by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Mimica said the EU was committed to boosting agri-business investments in Africa.

    The Commissioner also expressed EU’s commitment to strengthening livelihoods and creating sustainable jobs in rural areas, especially among traditionally under-served communities.

    “The ABC Fund will help us achieve this – which is why it has our full backing. The EU has made 45 million euros available to the fund.

    “On top of this, the Luxembourg Government and the Africa Green Revolution Alliance, an international NGO, are contributing five million euros and five million dollars respectively.

    “The new ABC Fund, established by IFAD, is primarily geared towards individual smallholders and farmers’ organisations, with loan sizes from $25,000 to $1million (about €22,000 – €885,000), thus improving their access to finance.

    “This “missing middle” has the potential to be profitable and to impact development, but has lacked sufficient funding until now,” Mimica said.

    The Commissioner said the EU was expected to mobilise more than 200 million euros in investments and could benefit up to 700, 000 households in rural areas.

    According to him, the ABC Fund was a major blending operation for agricultural investments in developing countries.

    “It covers direct investments such as small-scale loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, farmers’ organisations and ‘agri-preneurs’, along with indirect investment in local financial institutions for subsequent on-lending.

    “It builds on existing IFAD development activities to screen opportunities and reduce the risk attached to subsequent investments.

    “It is expected to attract significant additional funding from other sources – private and impact investors alike,” the Commissioner explained

     

  • Agri-business projected to reach $1tr by 2030

    •Sector tipped as Africa’s ‘new oil’

    With its vast agricultural potential, Africa’s agri-business sector is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2030. This makes agri-business the continent’s ‘new oil,’ according to leaders of Africa’s top agri-business companies, who shared their thoughts on the future of the industry at the just-concluded Africa Investment Forum.

    The Africa Investment Forum took place from November 7 to 9, 2018 at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

    The game-changing event was aimed at attracting multi-billion-dollar deals across the continent, is set to usher in a new era for Africa’s investment landscape.

    It was an unprecedented gathering to mobilize and crowd in global investment ca    pital for the continent’s ambitious development agenda.

    Participants and experts in the agri-business session including President and CEO of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed; and CEO of Grow Africa, William Asiko, discussed the industry’s entire value chain.

    Others including Chairman, Flour Mills of Nigeria, John George Coumantaros, CEO of Land and Agricultural Bank of South Africa, TP Nchocho, also said there was the need to harness the power of agriculture and move up the value chain to create jobs and wealth.

    “We need to do the research to produce the right solutions to the issues we might face along the value chain. Youths are particularly involved in this aspect as they know how to develop tools addressing issues such as water management and release”, Dangote said.

    The participants said agri-business can also promote industrialisation and urban employment, break the ‘productivity gap’ of development, and improve the quality of life for all Africans.

    Attendees said Africa’s agricultural potential needs to be unlocked; that they want to bring African agriculture to the next level.

    For the small and medium scale farmers, the main challenge remains access to finance. And this was why Shamsuna urged investors and development partners to adapt their policies to accommodate more participants in the agriculture value chain. “I want us to eat what we grow and consume what we produce”, she said.

    Earlier in her opening remarks at the session titled, “Agribusiness: Investment Conversation with Industry Leaders,” AfDB Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, Jennifer Blanke, said: ”Agriculture is a key priority for the African Development Bank, through our Feed Africa strategy.”

    She said there was the need to “Understand that by transforming Africa’s agriculture sector it will become the engine that drives Africa’s economic transformation through increased income, better jobs higher on the value chain, improved nutrition, and so on.”

    Some agri-business leaders said there was need to invest $45 billion per year to harness the power of agriculture and move up the value chain to create jobs and wealth.

    At present, only $7 billion is invested in the sector. Investments from the private sector, leaders said, will create the adequate environment and enhance the emergence of locally owned agro-processing industries capable of creating jobs and increasing incomes in rural Africa.

    The continent, according to the experts, could become a net exporter of agricultural commodities, replacing $110 billion worth of imports, as well as doubling its share of market value for select processed commodities.

    In closing the session, the Manager of Agri-business Development at the AfDB, Edward Mabaya, highlighted the vast investment opportunities in Africa’s agri-business including seed, fertilizer, mechanization, processing and storage.

     

  • Dollar sale to airlines, fuel importers, agri business coming

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said  manufacturers, airlines, fuel importers and agriculture businesses will be able to buy dollars at a special market intervention to clear a backlog of foreign exchange obligations now due.

    The CBN plans to settle the bids through a combination of spot and short-term forward deals, currency traders said, citing a notice from the bank. It did not specify the amount of dollars to be sold.

    “Authorised dealers’ accounts with the central bank will be debited in full for the naira equivalent of the dollar bid amount on a spot basis,” the bank said in a notice to lenders.

    The CBN has been selling dollars since February in an effort to improve liquidity and narrow the spread between the official and black market exchange rates for the naira. Close to $5 billion has been sold, according to analysts.

    The naira was quoted at 377.83 to the dollar at the investor window, according to market regulator FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange. It sold for 305.60 to the dollar at the interbank window and 366 on the black market.

  • 200 women trained in agri-business management

    200 women trained in agri-business management

    To get more women involved in agri-business, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture has trained about 200 women in agriculture entrepreneurial skills and business aptitude. The women were drawn from Kwara, Kogi, Ondo and Oyo states. Director of Agriculture in the ministry, Damilola Eniayeju said the training was designed to train participants on farm business management and vocational skills to enable them impart such skills on wives of farmers within their domain. Represented by the Kwara state Director of the federal ministry of agriculture, Buhari Adebisi said the workshop “is one of the several lined up to educate officers and farmers wives on how to develop on-farm agribusiness using different value chain.”

    He said further that “the goal is to ensure that the beneficiaries impart the knowledge acquired to wives of farmers in their locality, so that they can identify, plan, develop and manage alternative means of providing economic opportunities for their families, particularly post harvest season.

    “It is also to provide an avenue to diversify away from land farming during off season. It is for these reasons that farm business consultants have been invited to deliver lectures on development of on-farm business entrepreneurship focusing on identification of various cooperative enterprises, identifying profitable and manageable enterprises, among others.”

    Deputy Director, Nutrition and Women in Agriculture, Mrs. Zainab Towobola corroborated her boss, saying that “the programme is aimed at empowering women by training the women in agriculture officers so they would be able to train rural and village women to empower them on entrepreneurship programme.”

    Mrs. Towobola who told The Nation at the sideline of the event added that the “ministry has always encouraged even young women graduates to train in agricultural practice like aqua culture to be self reliant. There are examples of success stories like that. We need women to be able to do things on their own because when they are empowered, you have empowered the whole family.

    “Women do not have to wait on their husbands for salt or Maggi. I remember my mother was selling food from where the whole family eat. So, when you are well equipped with all these training programmes, you put poverty behind us.”

    She the beneficiaries are usually trained in “aquaculture, snail breeding, livestock, seedlings for fish-50-500, depending on member of states involved, feeds, fibre glass tank, all free to enable them start well. In case of livestock, we also give cage for chicks 200 day old chicks and we expect them to come and give success stories when next we have another training, so they could encourage other people and benefit from the programme.

    “People are advised to form themselves into groups or cooperatives. They write to the ministry telling that they’ve seen the programme done in a state and want our group to benefit, including your certificate of incorporation to show your application is genuine. And send to the minister who gets it to the official in charge to carry it out.”

    The deputy director urged the women folk “to come out, sit up and get rid of poverty and be self sufficient. For instance, when it’s time to pay school fees, mothers can do so of the husband’s are incapable. And you will be happy you can do something. Time is gone when you say you are ignorant of this or that.”