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.

23 June 2014

President of Mozambique visits successful agri-processing venture

On Thurdsay 19th June, President Guebuza of Mozambique visited the Empresa de Comercialização Agricola (ECA) maize mill in Catandica, central Mozambique. ECA is a for-profit company working with over 5,000 smallholder farmers, who receive inputs, technical support and a guaranteed market for their produce.
President Guebuza inspects ECA's maize flour products
The company was founded four years ago with seed capital from AgDevCo, which allowed investment into storage and processing and the development of an organised outgrower farmer network. To date AgDevCo has invested about $2 million as long term debt and equity. You can watch a short film about ECA by clicking on the image below.


Today ECA has commercial relationships with SAB Miller, Cargill and Buhler all of which are helping the company to scale up its operations and expand the number of farmers it is working with.
Posted by Chris at 12:15