Impact investor AgDevCo has struck new partnerships with a Senegalese rice miller and a Mozambican livestock firm to boost farmers’ productivity and income.
The Senegalese firm Société Sénégalaise des Filières Alimentaires (SFA) buys paddy rice from 3,500 smallholder farmers along the Senegal River valley. With the support of AgDevCo’s Smallholder Development Unit (SDU), it expects to be able to increase the yield and quality of its produce and raise farmers’ income by 50 percent to US$300 a year.
Moz-Agri, the Mozambican firm, sources goat cattle from around six thousand local farmers in the province of Manica. Within the next three years it plans to use AdDevCo’s support to build five new purchasing centres and provide training to its farmers to improve livestock-rearing practices.
“Farmers will receive training, learn to implement good livestock practices, make interventions that improve conception rates and reduce infant mortality. Farmers can sell more goats and we can reduce our costs and overhead,” said Chris Serfontein, co-founder of Moz-Agri.
AgDevCo’s Smallholder Development Unit was established with the support of the Mastercard Foundation to complement AgDevCo’s goal of making long-term debt and equity investments in agricultural SMEs in seven African countries. These include Mozambique, Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The unit helps small agriculture firms in Africa reach more than 55,000 smallholder farmers working with tea, groundnuts, rice, maize and livestock. It plans to deploy a further US$11.5 million and support another 18 out-grower schemes over the coming three years.