In the picture is Joas Chihangu, Executive Director of Schweizer Agriculture, Evans Kambobe and Justine Ndinenka of Justeva Agro Marketing Ltd in Mumbwa District of Central Province. Schweizer Agriculture is arranging guaranteed markets for grain for Justeva Agro Marketing with an ability to secure credit lines for crop inputs, crop aggregation, marketing & post harvest activities
Schweizer Agriculture plans to present a District Agricultural Indaba (DNA) in Mumbwa under the auspicious of the District Agricultural Cordinator (DACO) for Mumbwa Dr. Nicholus Obby Mainza who has a very beautiful CV, experience in agriculture and agribusiness.
Later in the day, Schweizer Agriculture met the Mumbwa DACO on the 7th June, 2022 and he welcomed our team in his district and since then various emails have been exchanged with an Apex of related stakeholders in order to provide access to finance, land assessment to determine the needed inputs; this will also involve base lining sixteen (16) cooperatives in the district currently working with Justeva Agro Marketing Ltd, other district producers/such as young men and women associations interested to come on board for Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development (PARD).
Kachi Agri Micro Finance and Oasis Asset and Fund Managers have since followed-up through various emails to the DACO’ office for further collaboration, facilitation as we await the District Commissioner to respond to our official letter to co-host a DNA designed to increase agriculture GDP through SMEs and cooperatives.
In Mumbwa such SMEs like Justeva are planning to procure grain in large quantities of soybeans, cow peas, groundnuts, maize, sunflower from the said sixteen (16) cooperatives.
They may also be assisted to access asset financing from local banks whose credit risk maybe shared with the USAID Enterprise Development and Growth Enhancement (EDGE) Activity which is a 5 year USAID-funded project implemented by ACDI/VOCA and partners Agova and Open Capital Advisors in Lusaka, Central and Eastern Provinces. EDGE’ goal is to support up 450 SMEs (75% of which have already been identified) with the view to increase their revenue, profits and job creation potential, within the six (6) USAID approved value chains.
EDGE’ two primary objectives of increasing the competitiveness of agricultural SMEs and their access to finance do align with Schweizer Agriculture (SA)’ own vision to promote the advancement of agricultural small-scale to medium enterprises (SMEs) in Zambia.
Both EDGE and SA have over the past several months, been developing a multifaceted relationship, via which both parties are exploring various collaboration possibilities, including in the areas of inputs/outputs provision and linkages to market opportunities to established offtakers/outgrower schemes, to name a few. Our common interest is to achieve catalytic and transformative growth in the agricultural sector, over time.
We are also exploring various forms of capital for the identified SMEs and producers e.g. the CDFs, matching grants and other forms of capital in order to develop agriculture in rural areas.
Schweizer Agriculture is also cooperating with Justeva General Dealers Ltd to sign various offtake contracts for soybeans, cow peas, sunflower, maize, groundnuts and supply of inputs such as seed, fertilizer and agro chemicals in exchange with various produce.
This will involve Kachi Agri Micro Finance also assisting Justeva General Dealers write business documentation on their project structure, financial structure, usage of the money and the benefits for the district will further be assessed through various technical experts in partnership with various agencies of the government. This collaboration is key for the development of our nation especially that agriculture employs over 65% of the workforce in Zambia.
For more information on this report contact: sales.marketing@schweizeragriculture.co.zm