Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Planting the Seeds of a Green Revolution in Africa

2nd Annual Report on private-sector investment in support of country-led transformations in African agriculture
2013-2014
May 2014 | Report produced by the Grow Africa Secretariat
91 pages
This report is packed with companies pioneering new business models for working with smallholders and adding value upstream. Partners are connecting around specific opportunities and structuring themselves into closer, more stable relationships within value chains in order to mitigate risks, generate economies
of scale, increase efficiency, justify investment and enable greater, more equitable value capture.

Business-to-business linkages are filling value-chain gaps. Farmers are aggregating themselves into commercially robust structures. Governments, donors and NGOs are playing a catalytic role to overcome pre-competitive barriers, while technology is dramatically reducing transaction costs for provision of information and financial services.

Despite the progress, the need for commercially sustainable agricultural business models remains central to unlocking investment at a transformative scale. Grow Africa’s partners call for catalytic action to overcome the following constraints, with bold and innovative businesses leading the way.

This new report was released at the Grow Africa Investment Forum alongside the World Economic Forum on Africa. The analysis by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) reveals 80 small- to medium-size African seed companies in 16 countries are on track to produce over 80,000 metric tons of professionally certified seeds in 2014.

Related: 
08/05/2014. Reuters. AGRA-backed companies become largest seed producers in sub-Saharan Africa
08/05/2014Report finds African seed industry dominated by local start-ups08/05/2014. Agence Ecofin. Un réseau de 80 petites et moyennes entreprises semencières locales présentes dans 16 pays. Les PME africaines dominent désormais le marché semencier en Afrique subsaharienne. D’après un rapport de l'Alliance pour une révolution verte en Afrique (AGRA), le marché des semences en Afrique subsaharienne est désormais dominé par des entreprises locales. Ces entreprises qui, pour la majorité, participent à un programme destiné à fournir des semences à haut rendement, ciblent essentiellement les petits producteurs. Expliquant les raisons de ce succès, le directeur du Programme pour les systèmes semenciers en Afrique (PASS) de l'AGRA, le Dr Joe DeVries, déclare que «la forte croissance que les entreprises semencières locales ont enregistrée en très peu de temps témoigne de l'esprit d'entreprise qui se répand dans les communautés à travers l'Afrique et de la demande refoulée de variétés améliorées à haut rendement chez les petits producteurs africains.»


Related: 07/05/2014. Vienna, Austria. Engaging research with SMEs (PAEPARD presentation at the AGRINATURA Science Days.

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