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Friday, 14 November 2014
Place your ADVERTS here and make the world come to you!
Need to make more money in your PRODUCT or BUSINESS why not
Place your ADVERTS
here and make the world come to you!
Contact: Akin
Phone: 2348029110482
You will be glad you did!
You will be glad you did!
Thursday, 30 October 2014
Financing Agricultural Growth In Africa
After years of neglect, banks, private equity funds and microfinance institutions are bringing capital to African agriculture
Africa’s agriculture sector has struggled to access the financing it needs for sustained growth. In part, a perceived combination of high risk and modest returns – as well as the costs of extending traditional banking infrastructures in rural areas – has deterred many banks and financial institutions.
“There can be failures in critical infrastructure such as inadequate cold storage facilities, unexpected disruptions in commodities trading, lack of adequate feeder roads to production areas, inadequate dry storage facilities, and congested ports prohibiting the export or import of products on time,” says Chomba Sindazi, director of Standard Chartered’s solutions structuring team for Africa. “And there can also be delays in the supply of critical inputs such as fertilisers, seed and fuel because of difficulties in getting goods to market. This is a particular problem in landlocked countries where it can sometimes take as long as four months to get the inputs to the required areas.”
Without tackling these constraints, and their knock-on effect on lending, talk of Africa’s green revolution is premature. But solutions are emerging at last, as banks, NGOs, micro-lenders, governments and investment funds make inroads into the continent, bringing much-needed capital to bear.
For large banks, Africa’s rural sector was long seen as a problem. Just 10 percent of Africans with only primary-level education – which is the majority of those in rural agriculture – have a bank account, rising to 55 percent for those with a post-secondary qualification. But rather than writing off this population, forward-thinking banks have sought to find new vocabularies to speak to them. Togo-based Ecobank has proven popular for its simplified language and procedures, which are more accessible to a wider range of customers than global banks.
Standard Bank, which has operations in nearly 70 countries worldwide, has also reviewed processes to suit the kinds of financial information more commonly found in the informal and small-scale sector. It has also broadened its range of services to include technical expertise for lendees. The combination of lending and advisory services is critical, helping the bank protect its portfolio, and helping customers gain credit and repayment track records.
Standard Chartered shows the same trend. Instead of looking to traditional collateral, Standard Chartered uses the value of the commodity being financed as collateral for input financing – as opposed to conventional mechanisms where collateral is secured through physical assets and balance sheets. According to Mr Chomba: “Risks associated with the cultivation of a range of soft commodities are mitigated through a customised multi-peril insurance policy, and operational issues are addressed through physical inspection and regular reporting by a team of independent specialised contract managers and insurance companies.”
The arrival of major banks bodes well for the efficiency of the sector overall. “Banks are interested in investing in businesses and entrepreneurs that are going to make money and are going to pay them back – either interest or return on some form of an equity. As businesses that are profitable come into the agricultural value chains, that is going to bring in the financing that will support those businesses,” says Gary Toenniessen, managing director at The Rockefeller Foundation.
Taking equity
Equity financing provides an interesting – and fast-growing – source of capital. According to the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, total private equity capital raised for sub-Saharan Africa in 2012 was $1.4bn. Agribusiness is proving one of the primary draws. The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, made its first Africa play late last year, as part of a consortium that included Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund and Standard Chartered Private Equity.
The fund invested $210m in the Export Trading Group (ETG), a Tanzanian agribusiness with interests in 29 African countries. ETG, which manages both intra-African and global supply chains and has more than 7,000 employees, says the investment will enhance its ability to connect African smallholder farmers with consumers around the world. The capital will expand the company’s geographical reach while adding to the quantity and variety of products – which currently includes commodities ranging from sesame seeds and cashews, to rice and fertiliser.
Private equity can bring broader structural changes too. A part of the Carlyle consortium investment will go towards building infrastructure to allow processing to take place in east Africa. “Typically the margins in processing are much greater than they are in pure acquisition and distribution, so part of the capital will be used to put up processing facilities around the continent,” says Marlon Chigwende, managing director and co-head of the sub-Saharan Africa buyout advisory team at Carlyle Africa.
Other PE funds and investment actors are also showing a strong interest in African agribusiness. Phatisa’s African Agriculture Fund, which focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises, signed its first deal in 2012, backing Cameroon’s West End Farms. The same year, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners and Capitalworks bought out South Africa’s Rhodes Food Group.
Africa’s agriculture sector has struggled to access the financing it needs for sustained growth. In part, a perceived combination of high risk and modest returns – as well as the costs of extending traditional banking infrastructures in rural areas – has deterred many banks and financial institutions.
“There can be failures in critical infrastructure such as inadequate cold storage facilities, unexpected disruptions in commodities trading, lack of adequate feeder roads to production areas, inadequate dry storage facilities, and congested ports prohibiting the export or import of products on time,” says Chomba Sindazi, director of Standard Chartered’s solutions structuring team for Africa. “And there can also be delays in the supply of critical inputs such as fertilisers, seed and fuel because of difficulties in getting goods to market. This is a particular problem in landlocked countries where it can sometimes take as long as four months to get the inputs to the required areas.”
Without tackling these constraints, and their knock-on effect on lending, talk of Africa’s green revolution is premature. But solutions are emerging at last, as banks, NGOs, micro-lenders, governments and investment funds make inroads into the continent, bringing much-needed capital to bear.
For large banks, Africa’s rural sector was long seen as a problem. Just 10 percent of Africans with only primary-level education – which is the majority of those in rural agriculture – have a bank account, rising to 55 percent for those with a post-secondary qualification. But rather than writing off this population, forward-thinking banks have sought to find new vocabularies to speak to them. Togo-based Ecobank has proven popular for its simplified language and procedures, which are more accessible to a wider range of customers than global banks.
Standard Bank, which has operations in nearly 70 countries worldwide, has also reviewed processes to suit the kinds of financial information more commonly found in the informal and small-scale sector. It has also broadened its range of services to include technical expertise for lendees. The combination of lending and advisory services is critical, helping the bank protect its portfolio, and helping customers gain credit and repayment track records.
Standard Chartered shows the same trend. Instead of looking to traditional collateral, Standard Chartered uses the value of the commodity being financed as collateral for input financing – as opposed to conventional mechanisms where collateral is secured through physical assets and balance sheets. According to Mr Chomba: “Risks associated with the cultivation of a range of soft commodities are mitigated through a customised multi-peril insurance policy, and operational issues are addressed through physical inspection and regular reporting by a team of independent specialised contract managers and insurance companies.”
The arrival of major banks bodes well for the efficiency of the sector overall. “Banks are interested in investing in businesses and entrepreneurs that are going to make money and are going to pay them back – either interest or return on some form of an equity. As businesses that are profitable come into the agricultural value chains, that is going to bring in the financing that will support those businesses,” says Gary Toenniessen, managing director at The Rockefeller Foundation.
Taking equity
Equity financing provides an interesting – and fast-growing – source of capital. According to the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, total private equity capital raised for sub-Saharan Africa in 2012 was $1.4bn. Agribusiness is proving one of the primary draws. The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, made its first Africa play late last year, as part of a consortium that included Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund and Standard Chartered Private Equity.
The fund invested $210m in the Export Trading Group (ETG), a Tanzanian agribusiness with interests in 29 African countries. ETG, which manages both intra-African and global supply chains and has more than 7,000 employees, says the investment will enhance its ability to connect African smallholder farmers with consumers around the world. The capital will expand the company’s geographical reach while adding to the quantity and variety of products – which currently includes commodities ranging from sesame seeds and cashews, to rice and fertiliser.
Private equity can bring broader structural changes too. A part of the Carlyle consortium investment will go towards building infrastructure to allow processing to take place in east Africa. “Typically the margins in processing are much greater than they are in pure acquisition and distribution, so part of the capital will be used to put up processing facilities around the continent,” says Marlon Chigwende, managing director and co-head of the sub-Saharan Africa buyout advisory team at Carlyle Africa.
Other PE funds and investment actors are also showing a strong interest in African agribusiness. Phatisa’s African Agriculture Fund, which focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises, signed its first deal in 2012, backing Cameroon’s West End Farms. The same year, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners and Capitalworks bought out South Africa’s Rhodes Food Group.
Friday, 15 August 2014
Friday, 25 July 2014
Corporate Farmers TV Reality show by Olusegun Obasanjo Foundation
Akin Alabi is a young Nigerian,
inspired by food policies adopted by H.E. Olusegun Obasanjo’s
governments during his time as leader of Nigeria and the resurgence of interest
in Agri-business. He has come up with a unique concept to motivate more
African Youth to venture into the Agro-Business arena via “Agrotainment -
As economic development in the
African context has moved to secondary and service industries in recent years,
the Abandonment of rural enterprise in Nigeria and other parts of Africa is
growing by the day. Factors which make the young and old migrate from rural to
Urban settings include Overpopulation, loss of interest in Agriculture, climate
change (including drought and failed rains), poverty and insecurity.
Corporate Farmers Tv Reality
Show is the first to be developed in Africa as an “Agrotainment” platform whose
mission is to lure the Youth back to the farm and bring passion for economic
empowerment through agribusiness.
The inspiration for this project is
in no small part to celebrate the living legend farmer, the only Agbeloba of
our generation Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. It is our hope that the participants in
the show will emulate Baba’s passion for agriculture. The concept was born to
bridge the need to improve the Agriculture sector in the country in which both
the Federal Government and State governments appear to be pursuing with
dexterity, the growth of Agriculture through the AgricultureTransformation A g
e n d a (ATA)·an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development under the ministerial leadership of Dr Akinwunmi Adesin
How it will work: 40 various youths
in groups of 5 to 8 will be selected to live in the “Farm House” 3 months.
What will they do? : The project is
scheduled to run for a period of one year broken down into 3 sections
First : registration, selection and
Auditioning of contestants to choose the 40 young Farmers that will enter the
farm house
Second Quarter: 40 contestants
enters the farm house for a period of 3 months to do Agriculture in
another dimension via our Agricultural Technical team from IITA , Agricultural
Society of Nigeria. After which 5 will be selected as winner for the
Corporate Farmers TV Reality show season 1.
Third Quarter: This period is the
time to celebrate Agriculture in Nigeria and Africa through the first Nigeria
Agrotainment Award to celebrate Farmers, youth, and Federal states who have
contributed to the resurgence of Agriculture.
Kindly follow any of our social media links for more info www.corporatefarmers.tv
Blogspot: www.corporatefarmers.blogspot.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/corporatefarmerstvshow?ref=hl
Thank you
Corporate Farmers International Ltd
5th Floor OAK Business Schoool
Ogba, Lagos
2348029110482, 2348023295359
Kindly follow any of our social media links for more info
Blogspot: www.corporatefarmers.blogspot.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/corporatefarmers
Website: www.corporatefarmerstvrealityshow.com
Thank you
Akin Alabi
Corporate Farmers International Ltd
Ogba, Lagos
2348029110482
- See more at: http://olusegunobasanjofoundation.org/oof_blog/corporate-farmers-reality-tv-show-by-akin-alabi/#.U9Jv9bH
Blogspot: www.corporatefarmers.blogspot.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/corporatefarmers
Website: www.corporatefarmerstvrealityshow.com
Thank you
Akin Alabi
Corporate Farmers International Ltd
Ogba, Lagos
2348029110482
- See more at: http://olusegunobasanjofoundation.org/oof_blog/corporate-farmers-reality-tv-show-by-akin-alabi/#.U9Jv9bH
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Welcome to Ify's Blog: The Next Big Thing - Corporate Farmers Tv Reality ...
Welcome to Ify's Blog: The Next Big Thing - Corporate Farmers Tv Reality ...: This is Nigeria biggest Agriculture Evolution ever...... Corporate Farmers Tv Reality Show is Nigeria and Africa First Agrotainment Rea...
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
Monday, 7 July 2014
Monday, 9 June 2014
Tuesday, 20 May 2014
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Use agriculture for job creation – IITA boss
The Director-General, International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, has called on
governments to make use of the potential in agriculture to create wealth
and jobs.
In an address delivered to stakeholders
at the Oyo State Economic Summit, Sanginga said there were opportunities
for the youth to start small businesses in seed production, input
supply, weed control and processing, among others.
Represented Deputy Director-General f
or
Partnerships and Capacity Development, Dr. Kenton Dashiell, the IITA
boss further explained that the youth could also be farmers and use
modern methods that reduce the labour required, raise yields and
increase income.
Citing the example of the IITA Youth Agripreneurs model, Sanginga said there was the need to change the mindset of the youth.
He explained that the Youth Agripreneurs
project, the first of its kind in the CGIAR, engaged young people from
various educational disciplines through mentoring and training to
transform them into agripreneurs, adding that making agriculture a
business was at the core of the programme.
“This project has so far been successful and we need to scale up,” he said.
The summit attracted industrialists,
including the Chairman, First Bank of Nigeria, Dr. Oba Otudeko;
Chairman, Nigerian Economic Summit Group and Executive Chairman, Philips
Consulting, Mr. Foluso Philips; and Director-General, Standards
Organisation of Nigeria, Dr. Joseph Odumodu.
The Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi,
in his welcome address, said the state was ready to offer incentives and
partnership to investors willing to explore opportunities in the
agricultural and industrial sectors.
He commended the partnership the state
was enjoying with IITA, noting that plans were underway to train young
people in agriculture.
The governor solicited more synergies from other foreign bodies in the human and capital development of the state.
Using data from the private and public
sectors, the governor spoke about several opportunities that abounded in
various sectors and the efforts his administration had undertaken to
make Oyo State an investment destination of choice.
Monday, 31 March 2014
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Monday, 10 March 2014
Thursday, 6 March 2014
kwara Kwara to Engage Youths in Agric
As part of measures to
checkmate the growing rate of unemployment, especially among youths,
Kwara State Government says it will fully engage the youth in
agriculture with the provision of funds and farm inputs as part of its
agriculture masterplan, KAMP.
The State Governor, Dr Abdulfatah Ahmed
disclosed this at a special media chat focused on youth held on Friday
at the Governor’s Lodge, Government House, Ilorin.
The Governor said government
responsibility was to create policies that would drive the economy,
saying that in order to achieve the objectives of youth empowerment, it
embarked on the enumeration of youth that would be positioned into
various skills including Agriculture.
According to him, government set up the
Malete youth farm with the aim of training youth in agriculture,
stressing that already, some of the youths have graduated and given
funds to set up their own farms across the state. “Already, they are
being compartmentalized into crops and locations and are expected to go
to their locations to become change agents in agricultural sector”,
Governor affirmed..
“The success recorded would now enable
us to begin to expand it by choosing people from each of the 16 local
governments who would largely become “change agents” , the governor
stressed.
According to him, each farmers haven
successfully completed his own farming skill would now become a master
trainer and cluster himself with another set of five to ten farmers.
“The most important part of it was that
we have set up an agric mall because we have to go into agric business
on a commercial bases by looking at the constraint that disallow people
from making success in the agric business” Ahmed said.
He said the Agric Mall would provide
access to funding, agricultural inputs, and access to off-takers, adding
that farmers can now go to the Agric Mall to meet farm extension
workers and banking support team for their services.
“The scheme would now be replicated in
all the three senatorial district of the state. For now we are test
running that of Ilorin, the success of Ilorin will now lead to the
setting up of one or two in Kwara north, one in Shonga axis one in
Kaiama axis and of course some in Kwara south” the governor said.
Agric Ministry To Introduce MDGs Pilot School Feeding Programme In 2014
he Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said on
Wednesday that it would soon introduce a pilot school feeding programme
under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) projects.
This is contained in a statement issued in Abuja by the ministry’s Director, Information and Protocol, Mr Tony Ohaeri.
The statement quoted the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, as saying this while presenting performance reviews of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)-funded intervention programmes to the House of Representatives Committee on MDGs.
According to the statement, the minister said that the project was aimed at combating malnutrition among children as studies have shown one out of every six children born in Nigeria die before the age of five.
It noted that malnutrition was a major cause of mortality and morbidity among children less than five years of age and pregnant women.
“Extreme poverty and hunger are also silent mental capacity killers among children as an under-fed and malnourished child finds it much harder to learn than his well-fed counterpart.
“To address these problems, the ministry has proposed the introduction of school feeding as a pilot scheme in Sokoto State and the FCT in the 2014 budget proposal’’, the statement said.
It quoted Adesina to have said that the major target of the ministry’s intervention in 2014 would focus on women farmers.
The aim, Adesina said, was to raise the number of women farmers with access to Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme from 600,000 in 2013 to 1.5 million this year.
It stated that records showed that where women accessed support in previous farming seasons, the overall goal of reducing poverty and hunger among farming families was better felt.
The minister decried the lack of a “perfect synchronisation between budget releases and the real farming seasons, leading to non-optimisation of government intervention in climate change, flooding and desertification”.
It stressed the need to increase national irrigation capacity to support increased dry season farming as well as overcoming security challenges in the North-East geopolitical zone.
The statement further quoted Adesina as saying that insecurity had adversely affected productivity and food security in the zone. (NAN)
Monday, 3 March 2014
Maria’s Story..A female Tanzania Farmer
"When I sleep, all I think about is the potatoes – they are helping my dreams come true."
I am 43 years old and have five children and four grandchildren. I was born here in Mwasonge, Tanzania and I am a farmer. I used to sleep on a rag on the floor with my children, then I met
Mwanaidi. She is a trained farmer, and she gave me new seeds and taught
me how to grow orange sweet potatoes. She taught me about soil
irrigation, crop multiplication, about dividing vines – the things we
didn’t know before. She also taught me more about selling my crop. Customers ask me why my
potatoes are different in colour. I explain that they are orange because
they contain vitamin A, which provides protection in the body and are
good for kids and adults’ growth. So customers get excited and buy from
me. Now we sell seeds, chips, biscuits, doughnuts, flour and even pancakes
all made from sweet potatoes. I work happily knowing I will be getting
out of poverty by doing what I am doing. I am now a leader in my farming
group and teach others what I have learned. When I sleep, all I think about is the potatoes. The dream is always the
same: to finish the house I am building out of brick stones, to sleep
in a comfortable place, to raise the standard of living for my children
and grandchildren and send them all to school.
Female participation in African agricultural research and higher education: New insights
Female farmers play a vital role in African agriculture, accounting for
the majority of the agricultural workforce. However, agricultural
research and higher education are disproportionately led by men. There
is an urgent need for greater representation of women in the field of
agricultural science and technology (S&T) in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Female scientists, professors, and senior managers offer different
insights and perspectives to help research institutes to more fully
address the unique and pressing challenges of both female and male
farmers in the region. Gender-disaggregated data on S&T capacity are
scarce, often lack sufficient detail, and focus more generally on
S&T rather than on agriculture specifically. Data are not always
comparable due to different methodologies and coverage. The Agricultural
Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative and the CGIAR
Gender & Diversity (G&D) Program partnered together to address
this information gap. This report presents the results of an in-depth
benchmarking survey on gender-disaggregated capacity indicators,
covering 125 agricultural research and higher education agencies in 15
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is the first study of its kind to
present detailed human resources data on female participation in
agricultural science, the main findings of which include the following: •
Total capacity in terms of the professional staff employed at the
agricultural research and higher education agencies included in this
study increased by 20 percent between 2000/01 and 2007/08, and women
constituted almost half of this capacity increase. The female population
of professional staff grew by eight percent per year on average, which
is four times higher than the comparable rate of increase for the male
population, indicating that the gender gap in African agricultural
sciences is closing. • The proportion of female professional staff
employed at the sample agricultural research and higher education
agencies increased from 18 percent in 2000/01 to 24 percent in 2007/08,
but fewer women have advanced degrees compared to their male colleagues.
In 2007/08, for example, 27 percent of the sample’s professional women
held PhD degrees compared with 37 percent of the sample’s professional
men. • Of concern, about two-thirds of the overall (female and male)
capacity increase comprised staff holding only BSc degrees, indicating
that the overall quality of capacity in agricultural research and higher
education is declining in some Sub-Saharan African countries. Notably,
the total number of male professional staff trained to the MSc level
declined between 2000/01 and 2007/08; however, more in-depth analysis is
needed to explain the underlying causes of these shifts and to what
degree they represent structural changes. • Levels of female
participation in agricultural research and higher education among the
sample agencies were particularly low in Ethiopia (6 percent), Togo (9
percent), Niger (10 percent), and Burkina Faso (12 percent). Shares of
female professional staff were much higher in South Africa, Mozambique,
and Botswana (32, 35, and 41 percent, respectively). • The female share
of students enrolled in higher agricultural education was higher than
the female shares of professional staff employed at the agricultural
research and higher education agencies in most cases, but a significant
proportion of the female students concerned were undertaking only
BSc-level studies (83 percent). • Only 14 percent of the management
positions were held by women, which is considerably lower than the share
of female professional staff employed at the sample’s agricultural
research and higher education agencies (24 percent). • The pool of
female staff is much younger on average than the pool of male staff. •
The prevalence of female professional staff is comparatively higher in
fields related to life and social sciences, and comparatively lower in
fields involving areas traditionally thought of as “hard science”, such
as engineering.
New Holland Agriculture
New Holland is a global brand of agricultural machinery produced by CNH Industrial. New Holland agricultural products include tractors, combine harvesters, balers, forage harvesters,
self-propelled sprayers, haying tools, seeding equipment, hobby
tractors, utility vehicles and implements, as well as grape harvesters.The original New Holland Machine Company was founded in 1895 in New Holland, Pennsylvania; it was acquired by Sperry Corporation in the 1970s, then by Ford Motor Company in 1986, and then by Fiat in 1991, becoming a full line producer. Since 1999, New Holland is a brand of CNH Global (NYSE: CNH), which is majority-owned by Fiat Industrial.
New Holland equipment is manufactured all around the world; the current administrative headquarters are in Turin, Italy, with New Holland, Pennsylvania serving as the headquarters for North America and home of the largest hay tools production facility in the world. With 18 plants spread globally, as well as six joint ventures in the Americas, Asia and Middle East, the corporation is present in 170 countries worldwide.[1]
In recent years, the firm has received several awards for its products, designs, and innovative features. Recently, New Holland presented the NH2, a hydrogen powered tractor farmers can refill generating energy from renewable sources. New Holland also owns trademarks for specific innovation on its products such as ABS Super Steer system, Opti Fan System, Intellifill system and others
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