Africa's commercial agriculture resilient despite COVID-19 disruptions, report

NAIROBI, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Commercial farming in Africa has a promising future as key players defy COVID-19 disruptions to earmark additional investments to propel its growth, says a report that was launched in Nairobi on Tuesday.

The inaugural Africa Agribusiness Outlook that was compiled by Nairobi-based Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and KPMG East Africa, said that executives were ready to defy shocks linked to the pandemic to roll-out new investments required to maintain competitiveness.

"We believe that there are opportunities for African agribusinesses during this period, which is unprecedented for many businesses," said Agnes Kalibata, AGRA President.

She said that disruptions in the global supply chains triggered by the pandemic created a silver lining for players in Africa's commercial agriculture who capitalized on a vibrant local market for key staples to remain afloat.

"The collapse of global markets has led to the rise of the "buy local" movement," said Kalibata.

"There is a chance to optimize local value chains, thus helping mitigate the devastating effects of the pandemic on the economy," she added.

More than 40 percent of 182 executives from 16 African countries who gave input to the Agribusiness Outlook report, vowed to forge ahead with investment plans in spite of the pandemic.

However, the executives representing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) said they would scale down on investments amid revenue shortfalls linked to COVID-19.

The executives were unanimous that access to finance, technologies, revamping of infrastructure, involvement of women and youth, was key to enhance the resilience of Africa's commercial farming during the pandemic era.

Likewise, the executives who participated in the survey said that friendly policies and regulations, greater intra-African trade and action on climate change are key to enhance the sustainability of commercial farming.

"The enabling environment emerged as a cross-cutting theme. Issues related to regulations including seed movement, taxes, cost of technology, big data and transparency were considered critical to the growth of agribusinesses," says the report.

Anis Pringle, a partner at KPMG East Africa, said that commercial agriculture has potential to fuel Africa's industrial transformation subject to innovative financing and revamping of value chains.