Abstract
This project partnership was based on a collaborative ‘model farm’ concept developed in collaboration between the report authors, the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor (BAGC) Catalytic Fund Manager in Mozambiquea, and locally engaged extractive industries as long-term and committed ‘patient procurement partners’ (PPP). This will create a fundamentally different kind of ‘PPP’ (private-public partnership), where there is a sustained corporate social responsibility element for the life of a mining development that facilitates mutually beneficial agricultural production to meet procurement standards, and to create confidence in the supply chain to enable local production to also participate in other market opportunities.
The fundamental project aim is to support/facilitate existing subsistence farmers to become able to commercially sell surplus quality products into the growing mining supply chain. This will enable a relatively secure market to indirectly incentivise and support the longer-term development of an emerging local commercial farming industry. The lessons learned are practical and easy to understand for farmers, and also parallel publication and multi-media components of how corporate and policy willingness to effectively develop and expand the ‘patient procurement partner’ PPP model.
The projects focus on developing an on-ground capacity through appropriate technology demonstration and extension of selected local agricultural products that are in demand from the local mining operation procurer. We have concentrated on high value, perishable products that would under normal supply chain analysis be cost-effective to produce. The project has focussed on the transformative nature of additional clean energy inputs in support of mechanisation and modernisation of production and postharvest handling, with particular attention being given to photovoltaics (PV) and smallscale oil-based biofuel production components within the context of local capacity in the Beira Corridor.