Having looked to quietly expand since delisting from the Johannesburg bourse two years ago, agricultural services and food processing company Afgri will turn its focus to supporting development and transformation in the agricultural sector in South Africa and beyond.

The group, aiming to drive food security across the continent, has launched several initiatives to develop emerging and small-scale farmers, along with several community and rural development projects.

“Afgri has embarked on an immensely successful training and mentorship programme for emerging farmers in South Africa and across the continent in support of our dedication to agricultural sector development and transformation,” said CEO Chris Venter.

Addressing media during a presentation at Afgri’s Centurion headquarters on Thursday, he said that, over the past two years, 98 farming entities were supported and 27 farming entities were financed, while Afgri trained and mentored emerging farmers on accessing markets, storing grain, selling produce in an active market, repaying working capital loans and retaining and investing the profits.

In essence, the Harvest Time project ensured farmers would be able to feed themselves, produce enough to sell and to advance from small-scale farming to create medium-sized enterprises.

“Increasing profitability ensures that our emerging farmers will become successful commercial farmers, actively contributing to food security in our country. It is our ambition that these farmers will grow to a size where they will even be able to export and thus secure food for the continent,” Venter noted.

In addition to the Harvest Time initiative, the group had also embarked on a mentorship programme called Abba.

Started in 2012, in Zambia, the Abba project recruited a “father figure” in a community to teach and mentor potential small-scale farmers and develop them into semi-commercial farmers through daily assistance and guidance.

The potential farmers were trained in farming techniques and provided with ideas on how to access markets and training in financial management and budgeting.

As a sideline social project, the Abba Zambia initiative also fed around 170 children every Sunday.

“This guidance, coupled with stewardship of money and life skills, ensures that the project has the potential for expansion as local product demand is currently much higher than production levels.”

The project was also established in Uganda and Zimbabwe and would soon be launched in South Africa. Some 29 Abba projects had been identified across the continent.

Venter commented that the drive to grow small-scale famers into commercial ones and unlock the capacity to feed the people of Africa would be achieved when a turning point involving knowledge transfer, upskilling and support was reached.

In addition, over the past six months  Afgri had spent some R20-million in support of drought relief, including the capping of storage rates, financial loan restructuring, the provision of some animal feed products at discounted prices and the donation of 6 t each of animal feed to 600 farmers to feed some 100 000 livestock.

In terms of social development, Afgri’s projects saw the support of 12 schools, the donation of groceries and other necessities to 1 989 individuals across nine communities, and assisting residents in eight communities with vegetable gardens and clean water.

EXPANSIONS
Meanwhile, Afgri continued its expansion efforts as it concluded the acquisition of Jolly and Sons, in Western Australia, and the acquisition of John Deere dealership Truck & Tractor Specialists, in Polokwane, Limpopo.

The acquisition of TTS Agri would increase the division’s area of operation right up to the border with Zimbabwe and Botswana, expanding existing operations already in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Ghana.

“Afgri now operates in 19 African countries in which we are making a meaningful contribution to agriculture and the grain value chain, whether through storage and post-harvest solutions, credit and other financial products, training, John Deere equipment, commodity marketing, collateral management or industrial foods processing,” Venter said.

Last year, Afgri shed its poultry business and Kinross Mill, selling it to a local consortium and enabling Afgri to better focus on its core grain management and financial services businesses.