News
The BAGC Partnership calls for agribusiness investment applications from Mozambican entrepreneurs
Thu, 15 Dec 2011
The Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor (BAGC) Partnership invites Mozambican entrepreneurs located in Sofala, Manica and Tete Provinces to submit agribusiness investment applications to the Catalytic Fund.
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AGRA provides US$32 million for agricultural project in Mozambique
Tue, 16 Aug 2011
Beira, Mozambique, 16 Aug – The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is to provide US$32 million for an agricultural development project in the Beira Corridor, in Mozambique, Mozambican new agency AIM reported.
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13 Applicants invited to submit full applications in Stage Two of the Second Round Funding Process of the BAGC Catalytic Fund
Tue, 10 May 2011
In response to the BAGC Catalytic Fund’s second call for applications for funding, 34 applications were received from agriculture entrepreneurs with projects ranging from fruit and vegetable farming and seed production, to poultry and aquaculture
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Chris Isaac, Director Business Development AgDevCo discusses benefits and challenges of developing agriculture growth corridors in Africa.
Mon, 4 Apr 2011
Chris Isaac, Director of Business Development at AgDevCo and Sean de Cleene, Vice President of Global Initiatives at Yara International, discuss the benefits and challenges of creating agricultural growth corridors in Africa.
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AgDevCo announces the launch of the second funding round for the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor Catalytic Fund
Fri, 25 Mar 2011
AgDevCo is pleased to announce that it has received funding from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Maputo and the UK Department for International Development to launch the second funding round for the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor Catalytic Fund (CF).
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Additional funding secured for the Catalytic Fund
Thu, 24 Feb 2011
The BAGC Catalytic Fund has been awarded additional funding for 2011, 2012 and 2013. A second call for applications to the fund will be launched in March 2011.
The Royal Norwegian Embassy to support the Catalytic Fund
Mon, 6 Dec 2010
AgDevCo is pleased to announce that the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Maputo has provided additional funding of NOK 8,000,000 for the BAGC Catalytic Fund.
BAGC Catalytic Fund awards funding to six agricultural start-ups
Fri, 15 Oct 2010
AgDevCo today agreed to provide a first round of loans to several start-up agriculture businesses in the Beira corridor region of Mozambique. The aim is to help create profitable companies which can provide jobs, links smallholder farmers to markets and address food security issues. The beneficiaries are involved in farming and marketing of a range of grains, livestock and tropical fruits – maize, wheat, cowpeas, soya, sesame, potatoes, goats, bananas and mangoes. All of the projects include active participation by smallholder farmers.
The loans ranging from $50,000 to $200,000 are provided as part of the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor (BAGC) initiative. BAGC is a partnership between the Government of Mozambique, international donor agencies and private companies, launched in early 2010. The aim of the BAGC is to promote a competitive agriculture sector in central Mozambique, creating over 350,000 jobs and providing opportunities for large numbers of smallholder farmers to boost their farming incomes.
Pascoal Alves, a farmer in the Dombe region who grows mangoes and sesame, said:
“Support from AgDevCo will help kick-start a profitable mango industry in the Dombe region, creating jobs and income earning opportunities for large numbers of people. What’s more, we are supporting smallholder farmers to grow sesame and food crops among the mango trees, helping boost incomes and address hunger”
Roberto Albino, director of the Mozambique government's Centre for Agricultural Promotion (Cepagri), said:
“The first round of investments under the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor initiative will kick-start a revival of the agriculture sector in the central provinces of Manica, Sofala and Tete. We call on development partners to help scale-up the programme so that it can provide income generation opportunities for hundreds of thousands of farmers and their families”
Chris Isaac, Director of AgDevCo, said:
“Mozambique has huge untapped agricultural potential. The BAGC initiative can help tackle rural poverty and increase food production through a public-private partnership. The government and donor partners should increase support for rural farming infrastructure, especially electricity connections and irrigation. Local and international investors can provide the capital to scale-up successful business”.
Despite huge potential, there is virtually no competitive agriculture in the Beira corridor region of Mozambique. Of the 10 million hectares of arable land, less than 20,000 hectares (0.2%) is farmed commercially under irrigation, mostly sugarcane. 800,000 smallholder farmers operate at the subsistence level with almost no access to modern farming inputs, finance or markets.
The BAGC Investment Blueprint available at www.beiracorridor.com demonstrates how to transform opportunities for smallholder farmers by linking them to markets and giving them access to improved inputs, infrastructure and know-how. It calls for almost US$2 billion of investment by the public and private sectors over a twenty year period.
The successful projects awarded BAGC catalytic funding are the following:
• Phoenix seeds
• Phoenix bananas
• Mozambique honey company
• Agriza bananas
• Moz-agri goats
• Lucite Emprendimentos Lda mangoes
For more information on the projects, please contact Chris Isaac, Director of Business Development, AgDevCo. Tel: +44 (0)20 7841 2821
Catalytic Fund: Applications for project funding invited by 27 August 2010
Wed, 28 Jul 2010
AgDevCo is pleased to announce it has received seed funding from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Maputo to launch a Catalytic Fund designed to support commercially-viable agriculture projects in the Beira corridor which benefit smallholder farmers and local communities. Proposals are now invited from entrepreneurs. The deadline for applications is 27th August 2010. For more information and a copy of the application form click here
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The BAGC Investment Blueprint was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Wed, 27 Jan 2010
The BAGC Investment Blueprint was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Presentations from the event (PDF 319kb)
BAGC Working Group held a meeting in Maputo
Sun, 10 Jan 2010
The Inaugural BAGC Partnership Meeting took place at the Hotel Avenida in Maputo on the 20th of January 2010. Around 100 attendees from government, the private sector and international agencies discussed the BAGC Investment Blueprint. The BAGC Partnership endorsed the following statement:
"Support to commercial agriculture and agribusiness with strong links to smallholder farmers is critical to promote sustainable opportunities for wealth creation and development in rural Africa. The BAGC Partnership endorses coordinated efforts by the public and private sectors to promote socially responsible agriculture; and calls on the international community to provide the necessary catalytic financing to unlock the agricultural potential of the Beira corridor region"
Presentations from the event (PDF 1.4mb)
Phase II
Fri, 14 Aug 2009
Following the successful completion of Phase I, the BAGC Working Group held a meeting in Maputo, on August 6th 2009, to discuss the way forward. The Phase II meeting drew 40 delegates representing the public, donor and private sectors.
