Whether for profit or social motives - and often both - an increasing number of investors are targeting opportunities in African agriculture. At the same time innovative approaches for deploying aid to support farming businesses linked to smallholders are emerging. This blog provides a snapshot of who is doing what, where and how.

4 February 2012

AgDevCo highlighted in World Economic Forum report on food security

The World Economic Forum has released its latest report on how to meet the global food security challenge. Titled Putting the New Vision for Agriculture into Action: A Transformation Is Happening (11MB file) the report:
  • explains that investment in agriculture in developing countries will have to increase by at least 50%
  • describes an approach which has the potential to deliver increased employment, expanded access to nutritious and affordable food, and sustainable resource use
  • gives examples where agricultural transformation is already happening
A key theme is catalytic finance. As long argued by AgDevCo and in this blog, the report says:

“Effective financing and risk management requires a broad set of innovative catalytic and patient capital financing mechanisms as required by the long-term horizon of agricultural development – from patient capital, donor grants and commercial equity to working capital and concessionary loans.”

The report gives a number of examples of AgDevCo’s work in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia to develop viable farming enterprises.
Posted by Chris at 10:36