Established in 2009, AgDevCo’s vision is a thriving commercial African agriculture sector that benefits people, economies, and the environment. The organisation contributes to this goal by providing investment capital and technical assistance to grow sustainable and impactful businesses across the agricultural value chain. In doing so, it aims to promote resilience, gender equality and the production of better-quality, more nutritious food.

This new funding builds on the original endowment funding provided by the UK government which helped establish AgDevCo over the past decade. This endowment has provided capital to agribusinesses that have directly created or sustained more than 15,000 jobs and to work with 750,000 smallholder farmers to help increase their income and improve their resilience to climate change. It has also allowed AgDevCo to build a capability and track record to the point where it can secure external investment capital.

In welcoming the investment, Keith Palmer, AgDevCo’s founder and Chairman, said: “Securing investment from CDC, Norfund and DFC is a major milestone in AgDevCo’s history. It is a strong endorsement of AgDevCo’s team and our strategy. We are excited that our vision is shared by our new funders, who recognise the important contribution that AgDevCo investments can make to productivity, sustainability, and inclusivity in Africa. Their funding marks the beginning of a partnership in which AgDevCo will use its sector specialism, drawing on our new funders’ networks and resources, to increase the number of impactful investments in African agriculture.”

UK Minister for Africa, Vicky Ford, said: “I am proud to see how AgDevCo’s investing has boosted sustainable agriculture across Sub-Saharan Africa over the past 10 years, including deepening impact on smallholder farmers and SMEs. This new investment will bring continued growth, by enabling agribusiness SMEs to expand, improve farmer incomes, create new jobs and strengthen climate resilience across Africa.”

Tenbite Ermias, CDC’s Managing Director for Africa, said: “This investment reinforces our long-term commitment to investing in key sectors in Africa including agriculture, which is critical for creating jobs, promoting gender equality and supporting people to build a better life for themselves and their families. Furthermore, it reflects our continued focus on climate finance which is central to our new strategy over the next five-year period, to support emerging economies that are most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate emergency.”

Ellen Cathrine Rasmussen, Executive Vice President of Scalable Enterprises in Norfund, said: “Norfund is very pleased to partner with AgDevCo to deliver on our joint mission: to create jobs and improve lives by investing in businesses that drive sustainable development. A thriving commercial African agriculture sector is vital for economic growth and job creation. More than half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population work in agriculture, yet Africa does not produce enough food to feed the continent. The investment in AgDevCo will create jobs, increase food production, improve climate change resilience, and promote gender equality. The AgDevCo team’s skills, networks and achievements are impressive – and we look forward to working with them.”

Algene Sajery, DFC’s Vice President of External Affairs and Head of Global Gender Equity Initiatives, said: “DFC is thrilled to support AgDevCo with a $20 million loan to bring additional capital to smallholder farmers and agricultural businesses in Africa, promoting food security for lower-income communities across the continent. DFC’s loan, alongside financing from our partner DFIs, will enable AgDevCo to link more farmers to markets and create jobs for underserved populations, with a focus on women farmers.”

This independent, third-party funding will accelerate the expansion of Bowery’s network of smart indoor farms beyond the East Coast and brings its total debt and equity capital raised to more than $647 million — representing the strongest institutional backing in the Controlled Environmental Agriculture industry. KKR’s credit investment follows Bowery’s $325 million Series C funding in 2021 led by Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC.

The Company also announced today that it is building two new state-of-the-art farms serving the Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas metro areas. The farms will create more than 200 year-round green jobs across both markets and provide locally grown produce to a population of 20 million and 16 million within a 200-mile radius of Locust Grove, Georgia and Arlington, Texas, respectively. Both farms are expected to open in the first quarter of 2023.

The two new farms, leveraging billions of data points collected from previous farms, will feature industry-leading tech innovations resulting in efficiency improvements to all elements of the grow environment, from LED lighting to water recapture to climate control, ultimately improving quality and yield. These farms represent a recommitment to Bowery’s sustainability goals; the company plans to use power from 100% renewable sources.

“We’re thrilled to announce our expansion beyond the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions,” said Irving Fain, CEO and Founder of Bowery Farming. “KKR’s support is a testament to the proven success of our business model and a strong vote of confidence in our technology leadership and ability to address critical challenges in the current agricultural system. There is enormous economic opportunity that comes with supporting our mission to democratize access to local, pesticide-free Protected Produce, and now we are ready to continue our growth more rapidly.”

The new financing will also provide resources to accelerate advancements in farm design and the BoweryOS, giving more communities access to a reliable supply of locally-grown produce, year-round. Bowery’s proprietary farm design and technology have been a key priority since the Company was founded and are at the heart of its efficient and scalable business model. The BoweryOS, the central nervous system of the business, integrates software, hardware, sensors, computer vision systems, AI, and robotics to orchestrate and automate the entirety of operations. Each new farm comes online in record speed, collectively benefitting from the power of the network and its billions of data points.

“We are excited to support Bowery’s pioneering efforts in vertical farming, which are directly contributing to the resiliency of our food supply,” said Michelle Hour, Director at KKR. “We believe that Bowery has the right commercial model, technology and team to capitalize on the rapidly growing consumer demand for sustainably-sourced food, and we look forward to helping the Company continue to innovate and scale to benefit communities across the United States.”

Bowery has continued to grow at a significant pace in 2021 and achieved a number of milestones; highlights include:

• More than doubling revenue
• Opening Farm X,  a state-of-the-art innovation hub for plant science in Kearny New Jersey, expanding R&D capacity by nearly 300%
• Transforming an industrial site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania into a technologically advanced smart farm
• Breaking ground on two additional large-scale commercial farms in Locust Grove, Georgia (located in Henry County near Atlanta, home to rapid population and job growth) and Arlington, Texas (located in the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, a rapidly growing technology and manufacturing hub)
• Expanding our reach to more than 800 stores through a partnership with Wakefern, the nation’s largest retailer-owned cooperative, including brands such as Gourmet Garage, Shoprite, Fairway, The Fresh Grocer, and Dearborn Market

Never in Africa have these words uttered by Nelson Mandela, an African icon, rung as true as they do presently.

We are two years into the implementation of the sustainable development goals (SDG) to achieve food security, combat poverty, create jobs, enhance equality and peace, enhance resource efficiency, combat climate change and protect the environment as critical priorities in Africa.

The writing is on the wall. And just as colonial oppression drove our founding fathers to launch the independence struggle, today the urgent need to accelerate the continent’s socioeconomic transformation beckons us all, as citizens of the current generation, to action. The time to do the right thing and act is now and in so doing, the next generation of continental icons will emerge.

Unlocking the enigma of Africa’s next icons

Three distinctions position clean energy and Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EBA) Driven Agriculture as catalytic sectors in Africa.

First is economic inclusion. Agriculture is the most accessible economic sector that employs the majority of Africa’s work force, at an average of 64 percent across the continent. Maximizing the productivity of this sector means enhancing income and economic opportunities for the majority in the continent.

Secondly, Africa holds a comparative advantage in terms of resources, with 65 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land and a 300-million-strong middle class demanding more value added and differentiated agro-products and projected to grow a food market worth $150 billion in the next 13 years. This represents a significant domestic consumer market for growth of local value addition agro-industries. On energy, is the abundant renewable energy potential including hydro estimated at 1852TWh annually, 3 times the continent’s current demand, and the best solar resource in the entire planet. By leveraging these resources in complementarity, the region can establish global competitiveness, and create the much needed jobs.

Third, focus on policy and non-policy investment to maximize productivity of these sectors serves the leading socioeconomic development priorities of food security, enhanced income and job opportunities. To maximize this productivity, development in these sectors needs to be considered as complementary and not in silos as classically approached.

This amalgamation will potentially maximize productivity of agriculture by cutting post-harvest losses (PHL) largely driven by lack of value addition. It will incentivize use of EBA and clean energy to offset carbon and enhance ecosystems, thus further cutting crop losses due to climate change and those due to ecosystems degradation. Amalgamation will also maximize productivity of clean energy development by diversifying application beyond domestic use to include productive use in agro-processing and value addition.

For example in Kenya, estimates show that cumulatively, on-farm value addition using solar powered, efficient micro-irrigation is saving farmers over $10,000 annually in operating costs relative to using conventional fossil fuel powered, non-efficient farrow systems. As a result farmers are generating up to $30,000 per acre annually. What is needed for impact across the continent are policy and non-policy incentives and investments to upscale this paradigm. It is in this upscaling that the long-awaited solutions to sustainably accelerate socioeconomic transformation will emerge. And in the process, create the next generation of continental icons.

Moving from talk to action – The Ecosystems Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (EBAFOSA)

EBAFOSA is already committed to upscaling through innovative volunteerism. This volunteerism seeks the application of physical and non-physical resources at one’s disposal – especially professional skills, organizational and professional networks, and ongoing initiatives – to build mutual partnerships with complementary actors at policy and operational levels. That’s to enhance the respective business or organizational objectives, like expanding market share, transferring skills and technology, or operationalizing policies, but aligned to the shared EBAFOSA strategic objective. This strategic objective is to bridge policy and operational gaps to maximize the productivity of both clean energy and nature-based, EBA-driven agriculture to sustainably accelerate socioeconomic transformation and achieve the SDGs.

Through innovative volunteerism, EBAFOSA is maximizing agricultural productivity. These innovative volunteerism efforts are being applied at the EBAFOSA pillars: amalgamation; policy harmonization; standardization; innovative financing, and ICT as driver of partnerships. To date, a number of achievements can be recorded across Africa.

Amalgamation, where clean energy expansion is tagged directly to powering value addition of sustainably produced agro-products (rather than undertaking them in silos) is the EBAFOSA foundational pillar. For example in the northwestern part of Cameroon’s Jakiri municipality, EBAFOSA is catalyzing partnerships at policy and ground level towards directly linking off-grid small-hydro to power cassava and Irish potato processing into varied product lines, and linking these to markets and supply chains using ICT mobile apps.

This is not only offsetting carbon in energy generation and building ecosystems resilience, but creating income opportunities along the entire agro-value chain and ancillary chains of clean energy and ICT. A total of 10 youth groups engaging in ICT, clean energy and marketing have been creating green jobs for approximately 100 young people. Over 500 women now have access to value addition services and as a result have cut their PHLs to enhance income stability and the community food security.

On policy harmonization to maximize productivity, EBAFOSA is achieving this through ministerial-level collaboration across ministries of agriculture, environment, energy, industrialization and others that are forming interagency policy task forces. These policymakers are further joined by stakeholders from private sector and the development community to share knowledge and experiences in aligning policy – all achieved through innovative volunteerism.

The EBAFOSA Sierra Leone task force has started building on some ongoing policy initiatives across four complementary ministries. A key focus for the Sierra Leone task force is tax concession policy for agro-based industries in rural areas. These are set to incentivize investment in clean energy power plants dedicated to adding agro-value near farming areas, and the task force work is another example of what innovative volunteerism is doing at policy level.

On innovative financing, EBAFOSA is reducing key factors of climate risk (driven by climate change-induced crop failure) and financial risk (driven by repayment defaults) to catalyze affordable private-sector lending along the EBAFOSA value chain.

For example, in Kenya, EBAFOSA Kenya stakeholders are working with the Kenya county governments to leverage county climate change funds for additional private sector resources. In the pioneering Makueni County, the fund is setting aside 50 percent of the portfolio so it can securitize up to 10 times the amount in private banks. These securitized monies will be loaned through low interest microfinance institutions, as a priority to entrepreneurs engaged in actions that optimize the agro-value chain using EBA and clean energy. Therefore, they indirectly finance the upscaling of EBA-Driven Agriculture and clean energy agro-value addition to create multiple low carbon, higher order income and job opportunities.

On ICT as a driver, the EBAFOSA-driven ICT app called EdenSys is enabling farmers to use their mobile phones to access advisory services, to access inputs including clean energy, and to connect to markets where they can price and sell their products among other key actions.

Going forward, a dedicated service to finance products and services along the entire EBAFOSA chain called M-eBAFOSA is being developed and this will be a one-stop-shop financing module. It’s a doorway that links end users and clients interested in financing along the EBAFOSA chain, to the relevant product and service providers also within that chain, be it advisory services or technology for EBA/clean energy, EBAFOSA compliance standards, or finance providers.

These are samples of how EBAFOSA is upscaling the paradigm that will potentially create the next generation of icons across the continent. Innovative volunteerism provides an opportunity to engage more people to cash on this paradigm, and be on track to clinching the prize of next generation continental icons.

Conclusion

“When you follow in the path of your father, you learn to walk like him.” This Ashanti proverb provides a lesson for Africa’s next potential icons. The first generation of continental icons arose out of solving Africa’s main challenge at infancy – the struggle for self-determined rule. Their dedication and determination to liberate the continent from the shackles of colonialism is what elevated them to status of icons.

At present, Africa faces the urgent need to accelerate socioeconomic development sustainably and catch up with the rest of the globe in actualizing the SDGs and implementing the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Innovative volunteerism towards maximizing productivity of the continent’s catalytic sectors of EBA Driven Agriculture and Clean Energy stands out as an opportunity to accelerate this development.

Learning from the first generation of icons, our dedicated and determined efforts in operationalizing innovative volunteerism make possible this generation’s ascent as “continental icons” of Africa’s future. This is our time as the current generation and Innovative Volunteerism through the framework of EBAFOSA provides the opportunity to do so.

By Dr. Richard Munang

FinComEco, a fully integrated Financial & Commodities Ecosystem launches today providing services, financing, capacity building and enablement solutions.   The ecosystem will drive improvements in food security, economic diversity and financial inclusion through a socially responsible commercial delivery partnership. The goal is a sustainable and increasing improvement in the sophistication and living standards of smallholder farmers and their families in developing countries brought about by a venture, which links agriculture to the latest financial technology. It will initially focus on Africa.

“Creating markets, developing infrastructure and providing financing for farmers are key ingredients for transforming agriculture in Africa. These factors were necessary for transforming agriculture into a wealth-creating sector, generating income opportunities for farmers in rural areas .” – The African Development Bank (Note1)

Rt. Hon Mark Simmonds, Chairman of FinComEco, former UK Foreign & Commonwealth office Minister with responsibilities for Africa, the Caribbean, UK Overseas Territories, International Energy and Conflict Prevention, comments, “It is important to recognise each African country is unique with individual economic, political and social drivers.” He added “With FinComEco I believe we have a detailed strategy to support, improve and facilitate the full agricultural value chain improving lives, creating jobs and alleviating poverty.”

FinComEco will encourage growth by connecting the farmer with the exchange, financial infrastructure and national economy. This supply to demand chain also includes small-scale traders, brokers, storage, transportation, shipping, banks and buyers including multinationals. This will enable smallholder farmers to get a better price for their produce, and provide opportunities for further income growth, opening alternative added-value opportunities including e-commerce enabled enterprise.

FinComEco has already successfully proven this concept in Malawi at the Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE) through the GMEX Group. During 2016 substantial benefits were delivered to smallholder farmers with an average 31% increase in income from use of warehouse receipts and better price transparency with 47,000 registered to receive the latest market prices on their mobile phones.

FinComEco will either establish or reinvigorate local commodity exchanges underpinned by trading technology, electronic warehouse receipts and a complete mobile banking solution. It will also enable trade across multiple regions and deliver a holistic secure cloud-enabled financial agri-ecosystem in partnership with development organisations, governments, research bodies and the private sector.

Hirander Misra, Founder and Deputy Chairman of FinComEco and CEO of GMEX Group commented, “The aim of FinComEco is to match exchange trading capability, including derivatives, to physical growers. Also to add value through enabling manufacturing, support services and delivery contributing to additional local employment.” He added, “The initiative will allow smallholder farmers to thrive, enabled by best of breed technology, standards and inputs (including seeds, fertilisers and pesticides). This is coupled with a unique Agri-finance business model to solve credit and financing issues underpinned by improvements in logistics and warehousing.”

Steve Round, Director of FinComEco, CEO at Saescada and Chair at The Big Issue Foundation and Ecology Building Society commented, “There are massive financial inclusion and food security issues across the developing world with not enough being done in a cohesive fashion to address some of them,” he added, “I am delighted that our mobile electronic banking and payments system can add real value, in this unique integrated solution, to many millions of farmers delivering against many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

FinComEco is currently being syndicated out to strategic investors. Additional announcements on this and further Board and Management appointments will be made in due course.