The 2 day international business forum had the sector experts and business leaders from across Africa and India for an action oriented agenda to unlock the potential that both India and Africa have for engaging in this sector. Following African Countries participated : Benin, Togo, Seychelles, Malawi, Gabon, Togo, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Mauritania, Swaziland, Rwanda, Benin, Namibia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, and Senegal.
India is keen to extend Line of Credit (LoC) to least developed African countries for joint venture business initiatives in agriculture sector. (...) We hope to extend lines of credit to joint venture Agri-business initiatives in Africa to deepen our engagement in the agriculture sector particularly in LDCs (least developed countries) and thereby help to support food security in both our regions. (...) Initially started in four countries -- Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, it had been extended thereafter to Malawi, Nigeria and Uganada. As agreed in the recent Africa Forum meet in New Delhi, it would be further expanded to Ghana, Togo, Tanzania and Zambia over the next five-year period. (...) Cotton is certainly an important crop in Africa as it is in India, but in many countries it continues to be exported as raw material without too much of value addition. The programme is an initiative to strengthen the cotton and textile sector in selected countries (of Africa)," Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia
Key Themes
- Identifying the hotspots for agri-investments
- Commercial farming: Unlocking the land potential - need, opportunities, how and where to engage
- Logistical infrastructure development and management
- Agri industrialization: role of mechanisation, transforming extension services, importance of processing zones & Agriculture corridors
- Consumer oriented production chain and value additions to integrate in global value chains
- Innovative financing for catalysing and sustaining growth
- Resource use efficiency
- Research & Development
- Opportunities for cooperation in Dairy, poultry, fisheries & aquaculture
Empowering Agriculture Ecosystem in Africa by leveraging Indian Innovation, Science
and
Technology
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- Innovation ecosystem in India is thriving earning the country reputation of top destination for innovation, Science and technology. The enabling infrastructure provided by the government as well as the private sector is serving as a catalyst kicking in innovations for the bottom of pyramid segment for effective and sustainable growth.
- A lot of these innovations are in agrifood space and given that India and Africa face similar challenges in the sector, both sides can benefit through knowledge and technology sharing. India can play a critical role in building an analogous innovation led culture in Africa. This session highlighted some key opportunities for collaboration between India and Africa in Agrifood sector with a focus of easily adaptable, affordable and accessible models.
- The discourse covered innovation trends in high attention areas like Seed technology, ICT in agriculture, Climate Smart agriculture, Precision agriculture, Innovative technologies for integrated pest and nutrient management, etc; explore possibility of ‘diffusion of innovations’ between India and Africa and also Identify areas of human and institutional capacity development to foster innovation and facilitate effective dissemination of technologies
Transforming agriculture through farm inputs and machinery: Opportunities for
collaboration
- Modern farm inputs (improved seeds, quality fertilizers and crop protection products) and state-of-the-art machinery are critical in building productive capacities of any nation in agrifood sector.
- This session focused on seeds, agro-chemicals and farm machinery and identified the existing engagements between India and Africa and going beyond, what could be the future trends.
- The participants deliberated on the possible partnership models that could be looked at in future both at B2B as well as B2G levels for building the transformative capacities in the sector.
Innovative financing for sustained growth
- India has over the last six decades developed various indigenous financing models that have spurred the growth of the sector and supported the marginal as well as commercial farmers.
- Today, when India and Africa are looking at engaging extensively in the agrifood sector, with a significant chunk of it driven by private sector, it is very pertinent to identify the innovative sources for financing trade, joint ventures, green field investments as well as technology transfers.
- These finances can come from donors, development banks, commercial banks, export-import banks and even as reinvestments from farmers themselves.
- This session evaluated different agri-financing models adopted by India and Africa; identified successful agri-financing models in African and Indian context; helped industry understand the new ways of financing agrifood ventures and suggest imperatives for government and industry to support such models.
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