https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

SSA agribusiness to grow to $1tr industry

SSA agribusiness to grow to $1tr industry

Photo by Bloomberg

18th June 2014

By: Kim Cloete

Creamer Media Correspondent

  

Font size: - +

Africa is increasingly being seen as the next food basket of the world, with agribusiness projected to grow from a $300-billion to a $1-trillion industry in sub-Saharan Africa within the next two decades.

The US is looking for new markets and investment destinations and is setting its sights on the African continent, the Agribusiness & World Food Forum in Cape Town heard this week.

“Africa is far more important to the US than the US is to Africa right now,” said Stephen Hayes, president and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa, which promotes business investment between the US and African nations.

He told Engineering News Online that the US had not moved fast enough to invest in Africa. China, meanwhile, had stepped into the breach.

“We should be grateful to China for waking us up,” said Hayes.

He noted that, while the US was becoming more self-sufficient on the energy front, it needed to move more swiftly into other sectors, including agriculture and agribusiness.

African governments and companies also needed to do more to develop the sector.

“Sixty per cent of the world’s arable land is in Africa waiting for production.

“Given global population growth and food needs, the reality is that food will have to come from Africa. This will change the landscape in Africa significantly,” Hayes told several hundred delegates attending the forum.

He said the US would not exploit the continent, as he suggested the Chinese had done.

“They bring their own workforce. For us, that’s a real problem, as they’re depriving locals of work. They have every right to be in African countries, but the way they’re doing it is wrong.”

He said US companies wanted to get involved in setting up small business centres and investing in Africa with local partners.

However, obstacles, including poor road infrastructure, clogged ports and unreliable energy supply, were hampering investment.

“You have to have a steady power supply to attract investors. On the political front, South Africa needs to decide where to go politically and whether it wants to keep investors in – or out,” commented Hayes.

Meanwhile, he pointed out that small-scale and subsistence farmers, who make up the majority of farmers in Africa, also lacked capacity to upscale their farms. Far more investment and skills would need to be ploughed into this.

However, Hayes said that, despite the hurdles, there was great opportunity within the continent's 54 States.

“Africa is going to become the guarantor of food security for the world, rather than being the recipient of food aid.”

Western Cape Department of Agriculture head Joyene Isaacs, meanwhile, said more young people should be encouraged to move into agriculture and agribusiness as a career.

“We need to demystify the sector and invest in young people.”

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

Comments

Showroom

GreaseMax
GreaseMax

GreaseMax is a chemically operated automatic lubricator.

VISIT SHOWROOM 
Showroom image
Alcohol Breathalysers

Supplier & Distributor of the Widest Range of Accurate & Easy-to-Use Alcohol Breathalysers

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.087 0.145s - 174pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now