May 18, 2016

Lynda Kiernan

UK-based social impact agricultural investment firm, AgDevCo, announced it has invested $1.1 million in the Zambian feedlot business, Ilobezi Limited.

Ilobezi is a growing enterprise in a growing sector. At current estimates, it is expected that the company will purchase 8,200 head of cattle from the region’s smallholders per year.

Zambia’s nascent cattle sector is becoming recognized more and more as a sector with great growth potential, accounting for 7% of the country’s GDP according to the National Agriculture Policy Draft of December 2013, reports Zambia-Invest. The report goes on to add that 42% of Zambia’s land area is suitable for livestock production and 21% is suitable for rangeland grazing.

As of December 2015 Zambia has a beef cattle herd of between three million and three and a half million head, however, the country has the potential to be able to carry a herd of up to 15 million head, according to Francis Grogan, Zambeef Products Plc’s Joint Chief Executive Officer.

Ilbezi also plans to provide improved seed and extension services to local smallholders, and to purchase sunflower seeds from area farmers for processing. As local agriculture is dominated by the production of maize, this will give local farmers an alternative market for more diversified crops that have a higher resilience to drought.

The investment provided by AgDevCo will be used to fund these purchases, to expand Ilbezi’s oil processing operations, and to improve its storage, farming and irrigation equipment for the production of maize silage.

“We believe that by helping organisations [sic] such as Ilobezi that are dependent on and interact intensively with smallholder farmers, AgDevCo can contribute to agriculture and processing in Zambia’s Southern Province and help increase incomes for thousands of smallholder farmers,” said Peter MacSporran, AgDevCo Zambia’s country director in a recent press release.

Zambia’s cattle sector also has the potential for huge growth through exports throughout the 15-country Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

“Surrounding us here is a market of 354 million people in SADC and SADC needs to start feeding itself, says Grogan. “Zambia is self-sufficient in the production of all the basic foodstuffs such as maize, wheat, soya, beef, chicken, dairy, pork, which is a major achievement over the last 20 to 30 years. Now we need to keep improving on that so we can export our surplus to these 354 million people we have around us.”