Category Archives: maize

#WhatsNextAgTech

Nest Nairobi held its monthly entrepreneurship speaker series in partnership with the  Kenya Climate Innovation Centre (KCIC) on January 27, at the Strathmore Business School.

#WhatsNextAgTech panel

#WhatsNextAgTech panel

Hosted by Zeynab Wandati (business reporter at NTV Kenya), the panel featured Stefano Carcoforo (CEO/Co-Founder of iProcure Africa), Grant Brooke (CEO at Twiga Foods), Marion Moon (Managing Director Wanda Organic), Charles Odida (a farmer), Linda Kwamboka (Co-Founder at MFarm Ltd), Chris Kolenberg (Director Marketing & Sales at Kenya Biologics), and Munyutu Waigi (Co-Founder of Umati Capital)

Excerpts from the event sorted by subject 

Agri-Economy  Agriculture is 26% of Kenya’s GDP and employs 80% of the rural population. It comprises 40% of exports and 45% of govt. revenue and 7% of industrial raw materials – KCIC rep

Government

  • A law is coming in farming which will require all farmers to be members of an organization, and through that, they will be taxed  – Marion
  • I’ve no faith in the government to solve small farmer problems e.g. they allow contaminated maize imports, our borders are porous  and farmers get zero protection, just exploitation from the government – Munyutu
  • The support that governments give to farmers has very little to do with farmers interest e.g. in the choice of fertilizers sold – Charles
  • Ultimately you have to work with the government. It’s not as bad as it was in the 90’s – Stefano

Cooperatives

  • We work with cooperatives, providing tech to them; while others devalue them by saying they want a cut, and there are many shady ones, cooperatives aggregate demand on behalf of farmers and play an integral role in rural societies – Stefano
  • We don’t work with cooperative, as we want to pay farmers directly. I’ve never seen a successful corporative, they are more like pyramid schemes. They may work when they are 10-15 people, but go bad when they are 200-300 members and become unions  – Grant
  • Cooperatives are very critical but don’t have farmers’ interest at heart. There is an Eldoret dairy cooperative with $10 million revenue, but it’s farmer members remain poor – Munyutu

Maize

  • Maize is a terrible crop – when you have a bumper season, the price goes down. When you have a bad year, the government imports a lot of maize – Stefano
  • Maize is a good crop. Farmers with good storage and good planning don’t have to sell maize at throwaway prices. Ugali (made from maize meal) is one of the top foods bought in every household. Also there are institutions that buy hundreds of bags of maize every year e.g. schools to fees students – they need quality and villages don’t trust imported maize – talk to them, negotiate sales in advance and they come to check out the farmers’ fields and pay more than the government – Charles

Farmers

  • The average of age of a Kenyan farmer is 62 years; they are used to a certain way of doing things right, and it is hard for them to change – Charles
  • Growing a crop does not happen overnight like the Eurobond;  Farming does not produce quick money, and farmers, by nature, are patient – Charles
  • Farmers trust each other, they trust farmers who have tried things e.g. they will try a pest control fertilizer that they are referred to by others – Linda
  • Farmers will adapt when they see something work. So you often have to give them free samples  – Chris

Finance 

  • 98% of produce is sold to the informal markets and there is little formal financing for that. Debt is about 20-30% of the market cost of foods sold as middle-men and “mama mboga” pass on the cost of default risk – Grant
  • Cash flow is key in agriculture. When a crop needs weeding, you have no choice, you have to do it, or you’ll have no harvest. You have to schedule money for from activities. – Charles
  • SACCO’s are good for farmers, but there are also many Kenyans in the US and Dubai (where investments only earn 1-2%), and who are willing, and do lend their idle cash, to farmers they trust to earn much more (some of them are even on @twitter) – Charles
  • The government has many avenues of financing farmers e.g. AFC lends to sugar farmers at 5% – Charles
  • Bank ads for farmer loans look sexy in TV but in reality, they are too slow  for farmers – they don’t disburse money quickly enough – Munyutu

 Local Markets

  • Food is 51% of household spending – Grant
  • Food safety is the driving concern for a mama mboga as she will want to know and tell her customers which farm her produce comes from –Grant
  • Urban young farmers who want to get rich doing passion fruit and strawberry should instead grow things that you can see a market for every day – Grant
  • It’s crazy that 100% of our local produce would be rejected at the EU – Chris
  • Processors are getting tired of dealing with brokers and aggregators and want to go deal with the farmers directly – e.g. for dairy, fruits (A company called Fresh & Juicy is working with farmers to supply Nakumatt) – Munyutu

 Inputs

  • It took 2 years to get bio-organic fertilizer approved in Kenya – Marion
  • Ultimately, what farmer can produce is declining, and those who are increasing productivity are doing so using chemicals, but that is only a short-term (5 years) measure  – Marion

Export Markets

  • Italian companies that produce canned beans and used to source them from South America,  are now looking to get them in Kenya, but are struggling to find enough farmers – Marion
  • Kenya can compete with Brazil in passion fruit; that market is big – Marion.
  • Kakuzi has 300 small-scale farmers that they used to grow their produce. They know what they spray on their own 6,000 acres, and work with 300 other farmers who they advise, but ultimately, they can’t establish exactly what inputs these farmers are adding to fruits – Chris
  • Small scale farmers won’t be able to compete in future – 1st world farmers are 40X more efficient – Chris

 Logistics / Middle Men

  • Kenya is not food insecure, it is logistics insecure. A banana is Kshs 10 (sometimes  20), which is the same price as a banana in London;  that’s because we stopped investing in markets, and there are many bottlenecks, broken links and 5-7 people between the farm and the market  – Grant
  • Supply chains are longer in Kenya that they need to be – there are too many brokers, and the farmer is not visible in the farm to fork story – Charles
  • Middlemen exist because farmers don’t understand what the markets want – Linda
  • Middlemen add zero value, and that’s why the price of food is high – as they hedge against their defaults – Munyutu.

Tech

  • Farming is putting a seed in the soil, nurturing it and harvesting – it’s not phone or apps or tabs – (which only bring in efficiency) – Marion
  • Kenya has been slow to get/adopt farm smart phone apps & software compared to Brazil and South Africa – Charles
  • Kenyans don’t use Kenyan products, but use our apps so we can make them better  – Linda

 What’s the Next Big Thing in AgTech?  

  • Traceability fake products look more real than the original product – so the next big thing in agri-tech will be clever apps to provide assurance through traceability of inputs. There’s now a lack of traceability, farmers will tell you what you want to hear, and counterfeit products are prevalent – Stefano
  • Distributed Commodity Exchanges, which used to be in Chicago and Ethiopia (ECX) are now in the cloud with firms like Twiga that act as warehouses – Grant
  • Mid-size farm management as a career. There are people in this room who inherit 30-40 acres in rural areas but want other people to profitably manage farms for them – Grant
  • Partnerships – Marion
  • Farmers specializing in certain crops and increasing their yields drastically – Chris
  • Financial capacity building – financial products in simple math, loan calculations in easy language – Munyutu

The outreach manager of KCIC said they provide entrepreneurs with an enabling environment (policy) for innovation, business advisory services and financing opportunities [for (1) proof of concept financing  and (2) a seed facility of climate change venture funding of $100,000-500,000 of  growth capital for entrepreneurs from June 2016]

Unga AGM 2014

The 2014 annual general meeting (AGM) of Unga Ltd. shareholders took place at KICC in Nairobi on December 2  2014. The meeting started on time, and with good attendance, and the set-up was different with the ‘speaker’ (primarily the Chairperson) using a lectern as opposed to answering questions while seated.

Some highlights:

  • Maize milling is not very profitable due to tax evading competition at the county level and has been brought back in-house to control the consistency of quality and supply. Also, Unga has implemented new Route-to-Market strategies and is opening up stores/warehouses that sell exclusively Unga products to overcome distribution problems in some areas.
  • Unga wants to become a ‘nutrition company’ versus remaining a miller. Therefore Unga has ventured into selling cereals e.g. beans, green grams, etc packaged under ‘Amana’ to attract high-end shoppers.
  • Unga got shareholder approval to buy 52% of Ennsvalley Bakery which retails its products through high-end outlets e.g. Nakumatt. Unga’s board (CEO spoke on this) feels Unga can revamp the firm to expand rapidly with a larger product range. The purchase of 52% in Ennsvalley is being financed by the proceeds from the sale of its 51% stake in Bullpak (for Kshs. 335M) and additional cash from internal operations. Unga will also loan additional funds to Ennsvalley at 15%.
  • There were interesting (& relevant) questions including the feeling that the sale of Bullpak was ‘cheap’ given the profitability of Bullpak. Some shareholders questioned the high purchase price multiples of Ennsvalley given the low sale price multiple of Bullpak. (Bullpak was a cash cow vs the cash hog Ennsvalley will be for a few years). Also, one of the Unga directors had to declare his interest in Ennsvalley though the extent of his family’s ownership wasn’t stated.
  • There was a discussion on GMOs and the MD said that, by seeing world trends, it is just a matter of time before the Government of Kenya has little choice but to approve GMO cereals especially if the region suffers extended drought conditions.
  • SWAG? No more bales of flour to be given to shareholders as the cost is too high on a per shareholder basis. This decision was made in earlier years and will remain so in the future.

 

Unga 2013 AGM

The 2013 annual general meeting (AGM) of Unga Group took place at KICC, Nairobi on November 28.
Finance and Shareholders Q& A 
 
Milling & Distribution Issues: While wheat is now being milled at 100%, it tends to fluctuate in other months as they compete with other buyers for grain especially during the festive season. Maize is being milled at 60-65% of capacity as more and more, maize is moving to the informal sector, and small Chinese mills.
When asked about product shortages of Exe flour for mandazi and chapati, the MD said when there are shortages of product, they may decide to mill general purpose wheat flour which is 90% of their brand sales. He added that shortages at Uchumi may have been due to that company being outside their credit terms which are enforced strictly.   
 
Tax Status: What is the effect of the tax reclassification of the company’s products from exempt to zero status? Unga products are now exempt (no longer zero-rated) which means they can no longer reclaim the tax back from the government – so they have to pass it on to consumers (higher prices)
 
Uganda: The company bought the 40% balance of the business in Uganda they did not own, as the minority shareholders was not willing to put in any more money while the business was struggling.  Since the takeover, they’ve been trying to add value to products, but this is more difficult since July 1  when the Uganda government imposed a 10% duty on wheat imports (all wheat is imported), also have also imposed 18% VAT. The result is that wheat flour is informally imported to Uganda, and big millers are downsizing staff and cutting back on grain procurement. 
 
Breakdown of Other Income: Other operating income was Kshs 281 million, of which 189M was revaluation of pension assets (thanks to a good the stock market). Directors said the sale of gunny bugs (collected over time) accounted for most of the balance, they will provide a detailed breakdown from next year.
 
Finance Costs: Why increased borrowings and why the low returns on investments? A new wheat mill was commissioned on November 2 and is producing quality wheat meaning fewer stock-outs. Also, the fixed deposits which were earning 6% in 2012, are now getting 12% this year.  
Volatility: Can the company benefit from Price volatility? There are recoveries sometimes on unrealized forex losses, but since the publication of the report, the shilling has strengthened, nullifying that, until recently.
Swag: As usual, shareholders asked about an increase of dividends, but also for the company to give bales of flour as a Christmas gift to shareholders. The chairlady said that this had been done in past years when the company did not have ample cash for dividends, and the board’s current preference was to work to increase the cash dividend paid out. 
 
Customer engagement: Some shareholders lamented the company’s low marketing and absence on the web with no information available for investors. The MD lamented that several counties were charging national brands for painting on walls and vehicles in the counties and that many companies are now white-washing their vehicles of any logos. He also said their website is at an advanced stage. A previous one was ready, but scuttled by management almost at the last minute. They also have a call centre at Kencall from July 1 that death with customer questions and also coordinated their orders and distribution. 
Hot Button Issue: Shareholders were concerned that the minority shareholders are being driven out by NSE buyouts at other companies (e.g.Access Kenya, Vipingo, CMC) and wanted the main shareholder (Victus with 51%) to assure other shareholders that there were no plans to buy out minority shareholders at Unga. The chairlady said there’s no evidence from the share register, that the main shareholder is buying shares, but this did not seem to offer absolute comfort as questioner noted that takeover notices appear out of the blue in the newspapers, without any prior notice.
 
Extras Business:  The proposal to shareholders for the company to purchase Ennsvalley Bakery had been deferred a few days before. The chairlady said that an opportunity to acquire an established bakery had come up and that in view of limited investment cash available, and the high cost of borrowing, a share swap was proposed – however not approvals had been received in time of the complex transaction. She said it would be discussed at an EGM to be called in the near future but before next year’s AGM.
 
The other extra business item – the sale of the company’s stake in Bullpak Ltd (a company that provides high-quality packaging material) was approved – with the board intention to redeploy the cash in the company’s core businesses of food and animal feed.

Unga 2012 AGM

The annual general meeting of Unga Limited, which is listed at the Nairobi Shares Exchange (NSE) had some discussion on land sales, the use of genetically modified foods (GM foods), the possible impact of Kenya’s upcoming elections on the company’s operations, and, of course – SWAG. Read more at Coldtusker‘s blog.

Rockefeller helps Farmers cope with Climate Change

The Rockefeller Foundation involvement in Africa goes as far back as 1914 and one of their goals is to strengthen food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

Climate change is affecting food security and the current floods in Pakistan attest and African farmers are seeing wild swings in weather, coping with higher temperatures, less dependable rainfall, and experiencing longer droughts. In Kenya, the Rockefeller Foundation estimates that maize production could decline by 30% in the next 20 years.

Africa countries need to recognize their vulnerability to climate change as ½ billion people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, yet some governments are instead selling off buying tracts of productive land to other countries who are themselves investing to enhance their own food security through geographic diversification

The Foundation has thus made agricultural investments improve their productivity of farmers by reducing the risks they face through key innovations including

– Developing new affordable insurance products for small farmers & pastoralists that are indexed to weather; this encourages farmers to increase land & agricultural investment with the knowledge that they may be compensated if weather conditions adverse affect their harvest

pastoralists & their cattle camp in Nairobi’s kileleshwa suburb during 2009 drought

– Funded the World Food Program to develop a software platform to predict most destructive elements; Known as RiskView, it can be customized or every district in every country in Africa and allows governments and aid agencies to when and where a drought will occur.
– Funded Kencall to implement a national helpline for farmers, staffed by a team of experts to answer farmer question on climate change, seeds, fertilizer, agro-dealer location etc – this will help overcome a challenge many famers don’t try new techniques or seeds because they don’t have enough information to take a risk. The information collected will become a research resource even outside Kenya.
– Partnered with Kenya-based Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), in a $50 million loan program through Equity Bank’s ‘kilimo biashara’ program in which the Foundation undertook some risk guarantee enabling the Bank lend to small farmers at below market risks who take up other products like fertilizer weather insurance, and use the help line.

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