Angola approves biofuel law

Angola's parliament has approved a law meant to support biofuel production, as the government tries to diversify the economy which currently depends on oil, national radio said.

"Biofuels will create jobs and a renewable supply of energy for the future," oil minister Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos told parliament, in remarks broadcast on radio.

The law sets out rules for producing biofuels and regulates the role of foreigners in the industry.

Agriculture Minister Afonso Pedro Kanga noted concerns that developping biofuels could harm Angola's efforts to revive food crops, after most of the nation's farms were abandoned during the 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.

He told the lawmakers that only "marginal" lands would be allowed to produce biofuels, saying the most fertile lands would be reserved for food production.

The UN Food and Agriculture Office last year voiced concern about foreign investors leasing African lands to produce crops for export, at the expense of water and food supplies for locals.

Under the new law, foreign companies that invest in biofuels will have to ensure that the local populations have access to water, basic services and medical care.

Foreign firms will also be required to sell a portion of their biofuels to the state oil company Sonangol to supply the local market.

Although Angola vies with Nigeria as Africa's top oil producer, it does not refine enough fuel to meet the national demand.

AFP

Beer brewer to buy Angolan sorghum

by Richard Lapper

Until Bruno de Castro received some good news recently, life had not been easy of late. He oversees rural development for the local government in Cacuaco, a small town about 20 miles outside Angola’s capital, Luanda, whose relentless expansion has been eating into the amount of agricultural land. On top of that, the Seco river, which flows through the area, recently flooded, putting dirt-poor subsistence farmers under further pressure,

So it was a welcome surprise for 40-year-old Mr de Castro when SABMiller, the beer multinational, offered a few weeks ago to buy tons of the local output of cassava, a root vegetable similar to the potato or yam, which flourishes in the region and has long been a staple food in tropical regions of west Africa, south-east Asia and Latin America.

“It was a shock because we had only heard [of] beer being made from barley and maize,” says Mr Castro, as he surveys fields where the drooping plant grows wild amid giant baobob trees. “This new project means that people here will grow more cassava and have a guaranteed market. The company is going to buy everything.”

Just a few miles away, SAB has built a state-of-the-art brewery, one of its largest such investments anywhere in the world. On a site carved out of the bush, workers are putting the finishing touches to a $125m (£77m, €86m) facility where production of a new cassava beer is scheduled to begin this year, alongside conventional beers and soft drinks.

With beer and soft drinks markets in Europe, North America and many of the most developed emerging markets already saturated, less developed African countries are increasingly attractive to global drinks groups.

SAB derives about two-thirds of its earnings from emerging markets and has been at the forefront of this trend. Its operations as recently as 1990 were mainly limited to its home market of South Africa, where its Castle lager, for instance, is a well-known and popular brand. Last year – as well as investing in its new Angolan brewery – SAB ploughed $250m into three other new African facilities in Sudan, Mozambique and Tanzania.

New products, such as cassava beer – which is made by adding dried and grated cassava as a starch additive to barley malt – are an innovative element of the push. Beer made with cassava tastes only slightly different from the standard product, but such home-grown ingredients are cheaper than imported maize and SAB plans to charge at least 20 per cent less for the new beer than for its existing brands. This will allow SAB to increase sales to low-income groups for whom its drinks might otherwise be unaffordable. That has already proved a successful strategy in a number of African countries. Eagle, a beer made from sorghum, has been made in Uganda since 2002, where it accounts for 50 per cent of SAB sales.

As Angola recovers from three decades of civil war, the benefits of oil sales to China and growing trade and investment ties with countries such as Brazil, South Africa and its former colonial ruler Portugal are starting to trickle down to poorer consumers. One effect is that consumption of beer and soft drinks is rising especially quickly among the urban poor.

Alongside its commercial ambitions, SAB hopes its new initiative can help this process. Accordingly, Mr Castro and his colleagues are organising some 500 subsistence farmers into a co-operative.

Money earned from a long-term contract with SAB will filter throughout the local economy, as will the wages of about 500 machinists and other workers at the brewery. By training these workers in new skills, SAB will be helping to ease local skill shortages. Angola’s economic recovery has been heavily dependent on tens of thousands of workers imported from China.

But the initiative is far from pure philanthropy. African markets are particularly attractive commercially because potential demand is very high. Although per capita consumption of beer at about six litres per annum is less than one-eighth of the global average, alcohol is popular. SAB estimates that the informal, largely unregulated market is about four times bigger than the formal sector, and that about 4bn litres of artisanal beers, wines and other drinks made from sorghum, millet, palm and other local ingredients, worth about $3bn, are drunk each year.

The problem for the brewers is that African markets are often difficult and expensive to operate in. Because Africa’s industry and agriculture are so underdeveloped, goods ranging from crates and bottles to raw materials such as barley and hops are imported. Roads and basic infrastructure are often poor, which increases the costs of distribution. Ports, such as Luanda, are hopelessly congested and inefficient.

Such factors make imported beer unaffordable for the vast majority of the indigenous population. SAB’s answer is to increase the range of goods it obtains locally.

In Angola, it is already buying most of the glass it uses for bottles from a business set up by Castel, a French drinks company strong in franco­phone Africa, with which SAB frequently co-operates.

SAB has signed long-term contracts to buy crates from a local producer, and a similar kind of agreement is in place to allow it to buy locally produced cans from next year. By 2012, SAB should be able to source most of the sugar it uses in soft drinks from an Angolan producer.

Sam Jerónimo, managing director of SAB in Angola, says such arrangements have other benefits too. He expects the changes to reduce the number of containers it imports from 18,000 a year to between 2,000 and 3,000 annually. “There will be a lot less logistic headaches,” says Mr Jerónimo. “It will save us a lot of hassle and we will significantly reduce investment in working capital.”

It is the introduction of locally grown crops that represents the most far-reaching change, however. By helping to integrate local farmers into the economy, SAB will be expanding the potential market for its own product.

Something similar has already happened elsewhere in Africa: SAB already obtains barley from 12,700 local farmers in Uganda, Mozambique, Malawi, Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The company expects by 2012 to be involving 45,000 farmers in such schemes.

More important, not only is locally produced cassava going to be cheaper than imported maize, but it is also – if produced in the right quantities – a particularly rich source of starch.

All this means the price of beer can be made much more attractive, helping boost sales in a way that has already happened in Uganda.

Whether cassava beer will be quite as successful in Angola remains to be seen. But the signs are good. Francisco Domingo, who runs a tiny bar in the down-at-heel Luanda district of Sambizamba, is optimistic. Mr Domingo, who sells as many as 25 cases of beer a day at weekends, says his customers are adaptable. “It is a good idea, especially if it’s cheaper,” he says.

Financial Times

South African farmers offered land in Angola, Uganda

by Ron Derby

South African farmers have been offered land for agriculture in Angola and Uganda and the government is also in talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Southern Sudan.

South Africa “encourages this type of expansion,” Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said at a conference in Muldersdrift, outside Johannesburg. The country needs “to ensure that we broaden the base for commercial agriculture.” Before any agriculture “there must be bilateral agreements between governments,” Johannes Moller, president of Agri SA, the country’s largest farmers association, said at the conference. Farmers want to move into Africa “as a result of scarcity of natural resources and land redistribution,” he said.

AgriSA on Sept. 30 said it had been offered as much as 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) of land to farm in the Republic of Congo and 35,000 hectares in Libya.

South Africa’s government will complete a review of its “willing-seller, willing-buyer” model of land redistribution by early next year, Thozi Gwanya, director-general of the land ministry, said yesterday. South Africa wants to transfer 30 percent of farming land to black farmers to help compensate for discrimination under apartheid.

Bloomberg

Angolan biofuel efforts progress with first planting of sugar cane in 30 years

Angola will begin planting sugar cane for the first time in more than 30 years this month as the oil-rich country takes its first step toward biofuels.

A 30,000 hectare (74,000-acre) site in Malanje province, hundreds of kilometres (miles) east of Luanda, is the first biofuel project to get off the ground in Angola where the government is trying to revive farming after decades of war.

The scheme is also part of efforts to diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil and diamonds, which have powered a post-war boom since Angola's civil conflict ended in 2002.

"This is a very important project for our country," said Rui Gourgel, president of Biocom, the company behind the 220-million-dollar (155-million-euro) project.

"Sugar used to be made in Angola before independence, now it is 100 percent imported, but soon Angola will have locally-produced sugar again," he said. "We are re-launching agriculture, decentralising the industrial sector away from the capital Luanda into the interior, making jobs and creating new areas of knowledge and training," Gourgel said.

The scheme is a joint venture between Angola's state oil company Sonangol, Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht and private Angolan group Damer.

Gourgel said the project will have its own processing plant and produce 280,000 tonnes of sugar plus 30,000 cubic metres of ethanol from the cane residue.

The leftover fibrous remains from the cane, along with the leaves and waste heat from the sugar processing will be used to produce electricity -- around 217 megawatts a year -- which will be used locally.

Angola is the latest in a line of African countries giving over land to companies for non-food crops, a trend that has raised concerns that rural communities up to the United Nations.

"These type of plantations use a lot of land," said Sergio Calundungo, director of Angolan group Action for Rural Development and Environment, (ADRA).

"We need to be sure local people won't be left competing for land and resources like water."

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in May that private and foreign ownership of African farmland was threatening access to water, food and other natural resources.

Public frustration at a South Korean farm project in Madagascar was one of the sparks behind the protests that toppled the government there in March.

Angola currently has no law governing biofuels or regulating how land can be used in such projects.

Draft legislation is going through parliament but the outcome remains uncertain -- meaning the ethanol produced by Biocom for now cannot be used in cars but will instead provide an industrial product.

Gourgel said the company was prepared to start biofuel production if the law changed.

"The technology is the same, we would only need to change some equipment; we are prepared," he said.

Calundungo called for a "full and open debate" on the new legislation, drawing opinion from rural communities as well as the central government and the businesses behind the investments.

Meanwhile, other companies are waiting for the green light to begin similar projects.

Portuguese firm Quifel Natural Resources has waited over a year for the go-ahead to start planting sunflowers, soya and jatropha in the southern province of Cunene.

With similar plantations in Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Mozambique, the company plans to harvest locally but export the crop to Europe for processing.

"There's a lot potential in Angola for these crops," said biofuels analyst Kholofelo Maele of Frost & Sullivan consultants in Cape Town. "But it's key the legislation is right and that Angola learns from the mistakes of other countries where there have been land conflicts over biofuel production," Maele said.

AFP

Chevron to support farmers in Angola

Chevron Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with the US Agency for International Development and the Cooperative League of the United States of America in Angola on Aug. 9 to supply $6 million for agricultural redevelopment.

US Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, in remarks at the signing ceremony in Luanda, Angola, called the MOU “a down payment on the future” to revitalize small and medium farming in Angola. “Equally important is a model of the global architecture of cooperation we are building through partnership with and beyond government,” she continued.

“The partnership between USAID, Chevron and CLUSA represents a new approach to development assistance on the part of the Obama administration. While we will continue to provide emergency food aid to address immediate crises, we are focused on helping countries build mechanisms that sustain progress in agriculture over the long term,” Clinton said.

She cited Alan Kleier, Chevron’s managing director of global upstream and gas, and Estavao Rodrigues, CLUSA’s Angola director, for their leadership.

Chevron signed the agreement two days after reporting a successful offshore oil and gas discovery by its affiliate, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company Ltd. (CABGOC) and its partners in Block 0 adjacent to Angola’s Cabinda coastline. CABGOC is operator and holds a 39.2% interest, with Angolan national oil company Sonangol (41%), Total E&P (10%), and ENI Angola Production BV (9.8%).

In a fact sheet at its website, USAID, which is part of the US Department of State, said that the MOU with Chevron and CLUSA, which is a division of the National Cooperative Business Association, will help Angola diversify its economy by revitalizing small and medium-scale commercial farming, and by promoting “agricultural development that is environmentally friendly, socially just, and economically sustainable.”

It said that the partnership’s mechanisms include providing finance, business and training support to small and medium scale farmers and related agricultural enterprises, strengthening agrarian schools’ capacity, assisting non-government agencies to deliver savings and credit products, technically assisting commercial banks to provide wholesale loans to rural financial institutions, and financing and supporting private sector-based agricultural initiatives.

Angola is still recovering from 27 years of civil war, which ended in 2002, and successfully elected a national assembly in 2008, USAID said. “As a potential powerhouse for regional trade and investment, Angola-which is already sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer and the sixth largest source of US imported oil-has tremendous agricultural resources and the potential to recover its status as an agricultural exporter and make an important contribution to regional growth and stability,” it said.

The country is Africa’s third biggest oil producer, behind Nigeria and Libya, with 1.9 million bbl a day of output, according to the US Energy Information Administration. It said that the country exports more than 90% of its crude to the United States and China, which has agreed in recent years to provide multi-million dollar oil-backed loans to fund infrastructure development.

The Chinese loans, which are costly and depend heavily on international oil prices, put Angola in a position where it could break ties with the International Monetary Fund, EIA said. “Nonetheless, the country is experiencing high levels of foreign direct investment, particularly in the oil sector,” the US government’s energy analysis and forecasting agency said.

It said that in addition to Chevron, other major international oil companies active in Angola include BP Plc., Exxon Mobil Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp., AP Moeller-Maersk AS, Roc Oil Co. Ltd., Statoil, Total, ENI, and Sinopec. US independent producer Devon Energy Corp. also has operations there.

In her Aug. 9 remarks at the MOU signing ceremony, Clinton thanked the three participants. “Let me especially thank Chevron for recognizing that it is important to give back to the countries where the natural resources come from,” she added.

Penn Energy

Angola focuses on coffee

by Louise Redvers

Angola, dependent on its oil and diamond exports, is working to revive its moribund coffee plantations to diversify its economy and revive a farm sector shattered by decades of civil war.

Once the world's fourth-biggest coffee exporter, most of Angola's colonial-era plantations were destroyed during three decades of civil war which followed independence in 1975.

Seven years into peace, the southern African country is now spending millions of dollars reinvigorating its coffee industry.

"Angola's robusta (coffee) bean is the best robusta in the world," said Mayimona Romulo, an engineer from the National Coffee Institute. "We have excellent conditions for growing coffee here in terms of climate and rainfall. As well as robusta varieties, we're starting to grow arabica in the central highlands. This year's harvest has just started and we think it is going to be a good one."

At its height in the 1970s, Angola was producing 228 000 tonnes of coffee from 2 500 large commercial farms and 250 000 smallholders.

By 1985, just 34 state-owned companies produced less than 9 000 tonnes and by 2007 production was down to around 2 000 tonnes. While production fell, global coffee prices were soaring. Last year, robusta prices jumped 45% to 2 650 dollars a tonne. That focused Angola's attention on coffee, now seen as a central plank of the plan to reinvigorate farming.

"Coffee is very important for the future of Angola," said Economy Minister Manuel Nunes Jnr on the sidelines of a farm trade fair. "Coffee and all agro-industry is fundamental to the development of our society because it creates jobs, a lot more than the oil industry does."

Agriculture Minister Pedro Canga was unable to give specific figures but said the government "was determined to create the best conditions for Angola's coffee sector" through a mix of public and private investments.

Among the private investors are BelaNegra, which prides itself on its 100% organic robusta beans.

"There is a lot of potential here. We are in the process of finalising paperwork for some export deals to the Czech Republic, Portugal and Spain, so we hope in the next few months Angolan coffee will be available in these places," Luiz Gonzaga, the firm's commercial manager, told AFP

On a smaller scale, the US government and oil giant Chevron are funding a $6m scheme called Pro-Agro to increase yields and boost sales from banana plantations and coffee smallholders.

News 24

Angola invests in agricultural revival

by Henrique Almeida

Angola's farming sector could finally resolve what its oil and diamond exports have for years failed to do: lift millions of Angolans out of poverty.

Thousands of kilometres of roads have been rebuilt after a civil war that ended in 2002, enabling farmers from banana plantations in the south to coffee producers in the north to bring their products to market on time and at affordable prices. More significant are government plans to invest $1 billion in 2009 in the sector and welcome in U.S. Chiquita Brands International Inc to its banana industry.

Other foreign companies and countries, including China have also said they plan to invest millions of dollars in the war-shattered nation's coffee, sugar, cassava and palm oil industries.

"It's a great solution," said Afonso Pedro Canga, Angola's agricultural minister. "Agriculture is the right bet if we want to boost jobs, fight poverty, hunger and increase the income of our people and the overall wealth of the country."

Angola aims to help an estimated two-thirds of the population who rely on small-scale subsistence-level farming to expand the area of cultivation, increase production and sales.

The move takes place against falling revenues from Angola's two main exports -- oil and diamonds -- as it struggles to bring down an unemployment rate that hovers around 40 percent.

Before the three-decade long war that began soon after independence from Portugal in 1975, fertile Angola was one of Africa's success stories. It was the world's fourth biggest coffee producer and a top exporter of bananas and sugarcane.

Seven years of peace have enabled it to reap billions of dollars from record oil and diamond exports, but the wealth has failed to reach to the majority of the population. An estimated two-thirds of the population who live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

Since Angola still imports over half of the food it consumes, Pedro Canga says he has little doubt that the solution lies in agriculture. "The government sees farming as a top priority that will enable us to solve our food problem," he said. "The country has great potential in terms of land and water resources and it is now rebuilding infrastructure like roads in order to create an environment that is favourable for investments in the farming sector."

"Major food producers have taken note. Chiquita Brands International should soon start growing bananas in Angola's southern province of Benguela, he said. "They will soon start this great project. They will partner with Angolan investors to start this project," said Pedro Canga. "There was a problem with land ownership rights but that has been overcome."

Brazilian building giant Odebrecht has also announced plans to invest in Angola's sugar and ethanol sector.

The Guardian

Angolan tomato concentrate factory to be inaugurated in June

A tomato concentrate and pulp factory will be opened in June this year, in the town of Matala, in Huila province, said the chairman of the Association for the Development of the Irrigated Area of Matala (Sodemat) in mid-March.

In statements made to Angolan news agency Angop, Luís Salvaterra explained that the delay in the opening of the factory – initially scheduled for 11th November 2008 – was due to delays in the arrival of certain equipment in the country.

The director stated that this equipment had arrived in the country and was already being assembled, with a view to completing the installation of the factory’s facilities and areas. Therefore, according to Luís Salvaterra, the factory would only begin operating in June, following its inauguration.

The factory has a production line with a capacity for processing 6 tonnes of fresh tomatoes per hour, to obtain at least one tonne per hour of tomato concentrate. Annually it will process around 12,500 tonnes of fresh tomatoes, which gives a final production of 2,200 tonnes of tomato concentrate.

The construction of the Huíla Tomato Concentrate and Pulp Factory is the result of funding from the Angola Development Bank (BDA), in August last year, of US$10.7 million, the equivalent of 802 million kwanzas.

Macauhub

Angola gets new billion-dollar agro-loan from China

Angola has secured another billion-dollar (783 million euros) loan from China, to be spent on developing its agricultural sector.

The southern African country has already received at least five billion dollars in credit from China to pay for its post-war reconstruction, but the World Bank believes up to eight billion dollars more has not been publicised.

Chen Yuan, CEO of the China Development Bank, announced the latest finance deal late Thursday after a meeting with Angola's President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos in Luanda, the state news agency Angop reported.

"We are ready to grant a line of credit of more than a billion dollars but we think the amount could be insufficient and it may be increased to meet the needs of Angola's agriculture, cereal production and processing of agricultural product," Chen said, according to Angop.

The China Development Bank is one of the country's largest, and is one of three policy lenders charged with supporting Beijing's government programmes.

Chen added that he had full confidence in the Angolan government and there were very good prospects for co-operation.

Trade between the two countries was at 25.3 billion dollars in 2008, and Angola is now China's biggest African trade partner.

Angola, a former Portuguese colony, was a key agricultural producer in the 1950s and 1960s, but millions of farmers left their land during the decades of war that left the soil littered with landmines. Most food is now imported.

The government, which relies on oil and diamonds for more than 90 percent of its income, is suffering amid the global slowdown and is investing in areas like agriculture in a bid to diversify the economy.

AFP

Conglomerate with African roots to develop 25,000 hectares in Angola

Africa-focused investment company Lonrho’s agricultural subsidiary, Lonrho Agriculture, has said that it signed a development agreement with the Angolan government to develop 25 000 ha of agricultural projects in Angola.

The company said that this was in line with its strategy of vertically integrating operations, as it aimed at becoming a significant producer, processor and deliverer of agricultural products from the African continent to key African, European and Middle Eastern markets. Lonrho would develop 25 000 ha of agricultural projects in the provinces of Uige, Zaire and Bengo.


The projects would be in cooperation with the government, and work with the government’s initiatives to promote agricultural reconstruction and development. The Angolan government is seeking to restore the country’s agriculture production, which had fallen sharply after a lack of investment and a 27-year civil war.


"Lonrho sees the potential for growth in the agricultural sector in Africa as a significant and real opportunity. It is the vertical integration of the African agricultural industry that is the key to success. It is the ability to not only grow produce, but to deliver it to a global market that will meet the growing shortages of food production," said Lonrho executive chairperson David Lenigas.


Lonrho Agriculture was also currently undertaking feasibility studies in cooperation with the governments of Malawi and Mali for 25 000 ha of agricultural land on the banks of Lake Malawi and for a five-year potential development of up to 100 000 ha in the Niger delta in Mali.


Lonrho Agriculture said that it remained focused on developing international standard agri processing, storage and handling facilities meeting European import requirements and developing and operating the necessary chilled logistics networks to ensure that fresh produce from Africa can reach markets in Europe and elsewhere in prime condition.


Lonrho Agriculture’s existing Rollex operation, located airside at the OR Tambo International Airport, in Johannesburg, has expanded its processing and packing operations from 3 500 m2 to 4 908 m2 to meet expected demand. Lonrho added that this perishable handling facility’s revenues in the 12 months ended December 2008, had increased by 25% over the corresponding period.


The company is a supplier to the South African market, as well as for major retailers in Europe, including Marks & Spencer and Tesco. The previously announced 1 810m2 fruit salad processing line at the Johannesburg facility was delivering processed fruit salad in South Africa, and opening export markets in Europe. The fruit salad facility was forecast to add turnover of $20-million to the Rollex operations in 2009, said the company.


Lonrho also said that its 480 m2 cold store and export processing facility in Windhoek, Namibia, had surpassed expectations. The facility now exported 15 t of fresh fish from Windhoek to Frankfurt and Gatwick on a daily basis. The company’s agricultural engineering consultants MBB completed site surveys for the new cold store and agri-processing facility that it was developing at Lilongwe, Malawi, to start delivering produce from Malawi to service the Middle East market. “Further agri processing facilities are under negotiation and planned to be developed in Harare in Zimbabwe, the Niger delta in Mali, and Luanda in Angola,” concluded Lonrho.

Engineering News

Angola to spend $150 million to revive coffee sector

By Henrique Almeida


Angola, once a top coffee producer, will invest $150 million in four years to relaunch its coffee sector as world market prices gradually recover from recent lows, the head of the country's Coffee Institute said. Angola, which exports less than five percent of its 1970s record of 200,000 tonnes of coffee per year, expects output to increase to 50,000 tonnes a year by 2013 on the back of a plan to train farmers and modernise coffee plants across the nation.


"We will train coffee producers, provide them with vehicles, modern roasting and grinding machines and other tools to help revive Angola's once prosperous coffee sector," said Joao Neto, the head of Angola's Coffee Institute. "Our target is to reconquer our spot among the world's top coffee producers."


Towards the end of colonial rule, Angola was self-sufficient in food, a major exporter of sisal, cotton and the fourth largest producer of coffee in the world. But the country's coffee fields were destroyed or abandoned during a 27-year civil war that took place soon after Angola's independence from Portugal in 1975. Coffee farms were gradually replaced with basic food crops like cassava and maize.


However, Neto said Angolans were now waking up to the smell of coffee as they realized the sector's strong potential for growth and high profit margins. "Three years ago we only had one coffee exporter in Angola, today there are seven of them. All the coffee produced here is immediately sold in the market or shipped to other countries," he said.


Neto noted that exporters were buying coffee in the form of beans for $4 a kg, four times more than the amount originally paid by middlemen to local coffee producers in the southwestern African nation. "That same amount of coffee can be sold in international markets for at least $8," he said, adding that Angola was famous for its robusta coffee -- the type that is used in most instant coffee.


Coffee prices fell sharply last year as economic gloom deepened but have slowly begun to recover in the last few weeks, boosted by a tighter supply outlook for 2009/10. A global coffee shortfall is seen in 2009/10 with output in No.1 producer Brazil set to fall and demand expected to hold up despite the economic downturn, the International Coffee Organization (ICO) said.


Angola is expected to export around 17,000 tonnes of coffee in 2009, up from 12,000 in the previous year. Neto predicted a rise in coffee exports of around 30 percent a year would soon turn Angola into one of the world's top coffee producers."If we export 50,000 tonnes of coffee by 2013, pretty soon we will reach 200,000 tonnes. That is roughly the same amount we were exporting towards the end of colonial era."

The Guardian

Angolan agricultural prospects attract international investors

For the past 30 years, Jose Vilomba, 47, has walked barefoot on one of Africa's most fertile valleys using his hands and a shovel to plant vegetables to feed his family. "I've been doing this for years," said Vilomba. "It's what I do for a living."

But if post-civil war elections in Angola end well, the state-owned land Vilomba is working on could soon be sold to major food producers and the expiration date on his small harvest could equally apply to his own way of life.

U.S.-based Dole Food Co, the world's largest fresh fruit and vegetable producer, and Chiquita Brands International, owner of the namesake banana label, are in talks with local authorities to help recover this valley's once prosperous banana industry.

Brazilian building giant Odebrecht recently announced plans to invest in Angola's sugar and ethanol sector and other foreign companies are expected to invest millions of dollars in the war-shattered coffee, sugar, cassava and palm oil industries.

"All I can say is that there is massive foreign interest. Many European, U.S. and Asian companies have knocked on my door to say they want to invest in our land," said Abrantes Carlos, director for rural development in Benguela province.

Angola was the world's fourth biggest coffee producer and a top exporter of sugarcane, bananas, sisal and cotton before a 27-year civil war after independence from Portugal in 1975 led to a mass exodus of farmers to the cities.

The oil- and mineral-rich nation has since become one of Africa's fastest growing economies, on the back of record oil exports, but has so far failed to kick-start its farming industry, importing over half of the food it consumes. But as world food prices rise and unemployment in Angola hovers around 40 percent, the government is trying hard to attract foreign investors to its farming sector in a bid to improve the lives of ordinary Angolans.

"Agriculture is key because it will increase jobs and help our economy grow as a whole," said Joaquim Duarte, a senior official at Angola's Ministry of Agriculture, referring to the government's strategy for the sector.

Farmers use less than 10 percent of 35 million hectares of arable land in Angola, which makes the country one of the most promising agricultural nations.

New infrastructure projects are also underway to improve road and rail links between the capital city, Luanda, and the countryside to enable farmers to market their products.

Manuel Monteiro, who started with a plot of land in a valley in Benguela and has since become Angola's biggest banana producer, is a case in point. Once a small-time farmer, he has taken advantage of new road links to make a fortune selling bananas from the Vale do Cavaco in Benguela to Luanda, 400 kilometers (250 miles) away.

"I started with nothing. Just a small plot of land in the Vale do Cavaco some years ago," he said. "But I am now selling 4,000 tonnes of bananas each year to Luanda and in two years this number should double."

Only a small fraction of Angolan farmers sell their products in Luanda; 98 percent survive on subsistence farming. But Monteiro said new investments in the industry will help Angola regain its agricultural glory. "This is just the beginning of a revolution in the farming sector. We need new players to teach Angolan farmers the technology and know-how to increase much-needed production," he said.

However, most investors will only place their bets after landmark parliamentary elections on September 5 .

"There are still some that fear the elections, especially after what happened in Zimbabwe and Kenya, but if the September vote goes well, I have no doubt we will be bombarded with projects," said Jose Lopes, a senior official at Angola's central bank, BNA.

Analysts expect the ruling MPLA party to retain or increase its majority in parliament against a divided and underfunded opposition. That will further increases the likelihood of a rise of foreign investment in agriculture.

The country's last elections, in 1992, led to the return of a civil war between government forces and the opposition UNITA party that claimed over one million lives. Most political leaders expect the upcoming election to be carried out peacefully.

"This time there is no way the elections will lead to warfare," Angolan Prime Minister Fernando Dias dos Santos said. "Angolans have suffered too much get here. Nobody wants violence."

For Vilomba, the subsistence farmer, a peaceful election will likely bring change as foreign companies move in. But he may continue to farm: Angolan law requires foreign companies that buy land for agriculture to either train and employ local farmers or help them relocate to other land.

Reuters

Angola invests 'billions' in agriculture-related infrastructure

Angola, with plentiful water and fertile soils, can re-establish itself as one of the world's richest farming nations as it recovers from a civil war that devastated the sector, the country's prime minister said.

"We have the potential to become one of the world's richest agricultural countries," said Prime Minister Fernando Dias dos Santos on August 14.

Angola was the world's fourth biggest coffee producer and a top exporter of sugarcane, bananas, sisal and cotton before a 27-year civil war on independence from Portugal in 1975 led to a mass exodus of farmers to the cities and halted production.

Dias dos Santos said Angola, which now imports over half of its food, has invested billions of dollars to rebuild roads, energy and water supply networks to revive the industry and link the capital Luanda to the countryside.

"We have been creating infrastructures that are necessary to increase internal production. We are completing roads for the transportation of goods and people and building energy and water supply networks that are also important," he said.

He said growing state and private investment in the sector will make Angola less dependent on oil, which accounts for almost 90 percent of the country's exports.

"We are creating areas of investment in several provinces in the rural areas. Some projects will be financed by the state but there has to be more private investment. I think that in the next two to three years there will be visible changes in production."

Angola is also trying to revive its once prosperous coffee and banana industry, Dias dos Santos said.

"There are old coffee plantations being revived in the centre and south of the country and rising investments in banana plantations like in Benguela, Luanda and Luanda Sul," he said. "Our goal today is not the same as in the 1970s, we have to surpass those goals. The situation is different and the population has increased."

Angola recently surpassed Nigeria as Africa's biggest oil producer and has experienced double-digit growth in both the oil and non-oil sectors. But ordinary Angolans have so far failed to tap into such growth -- almost two-thirds live on less than $2 a day and unemployment hovers around 40 percent. Some see agriculture as the only way to improve the lives of the people amid rising food prices and inflation.

The World Bank recently urged the Angolan government to bolster investment in agriculture and offered $30 million to fund an agricultural project geared toward market production. But in the traditional farming provinces of Benguela, Bie, Huambo and Malange, local farmers still work on small plots of land to grow just enough to feed their families.

Dias dos Santos said efforts were underway to allow big companies to develop Angola's vast agricultural resources.

"We are pushing for more companies to invest in the sector. We will protect the self-sufficient agriculture but we are also going to bet on big companies that introduce new technology," he said.

Angolan farmers cultivate less than 10 percent of an estimated 35 million hectares of arable land due to lack of technology and financing, making Angola one of the most promising agricultural nations.

"With these investments we will surely do better than before," he said.

Reuters

IFAD project seeks to assist Angolan smallholders be more productive

Some 126,000 farming families in Angola will benefit from a $49.5 million United Nations-backed agreement signed to improve agricultural productivity and revitalize markets.

After almost three decades of war, peace in the southern African country has opened the way for reconstruction, but 68 per cent of Angolans live below the poverty line and 15 per cent of households live in extreme poverty.

"Angola could be a rich agricultural country, but the war and lack of investment have severely held back the sector," said Carla Ferreira, country programme manager for the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which fights rural poverty.

"However, we see a significant potential to increase agricultural production by expanding the average area that each farmer cultivates, increasing labour productivity and making markets more efficient. That is what this project is going to tackle," she added.

Under the agreement signed at IFAD's Rome headquarters by Angolan Ambassador to Italy Manuel Pedro Pacavira and IFAD President Lennart BÃ¥ge, the market-oriented Smallholder Agriculture Project will be partly financed by an $8.2 million loan from the Fund.

The World Bank will contribute $30.1 million and Japan another $4 million. Angola will provide $4.1 million and other project participants the equivalent of $3 million.

A large proportion of beneficiaries consist of recently returned persons who have taken up farming. The project activities will begin in the province of Bié, and will later be expanded to Malanje and Huambo.

The project will help communities to identify needs for small-scale agricultural investments, which will be funded through matching grants. It will build the capacity of private-sector service providers and improve links with other development organizations. The project has a gender-sensitive design, and includes budgeting for childcare to enable women to attend training courses.

To improve farmers' skills and knowledge, the project will set up farmer field schools, hold workshops, exchange visits and study tours at both the municipal and provincial levels to share lessons in project implementation in the different target areas.

With this project, IFAD has provided a total of $44.3 million for five projects in Angola, directly benefiting 311,800 households.

allafrica.com

Chiquita to grow bananas in Angola, Mozambique for EU market

Chiquita Brands International, Inc. has announced long-term strategic associations in Africa for the export of bananas to the company's core European markets from Angola with ESCOM, a member of Grupo Espirito Santo, and from Mozambique with Matanuska Africa Limited. With commercial exports expected to start in 2010, each project is expected to create approximately 3,000 direct jobs.

These projects in Angola and Mozambique allow the company to further strengthen the diversity of its geographic sourcing portfolio, and to provide, upon project completion, an expected 20 to 30 percent of the company's premium quality fruit volume for European markets, on a tariff free basis. The decision to expand Chiquita's African presence was based on the company's assessment that sourcing from Africa would continue to be cost-competitive, even if there are future significant reductions in the import tariff rate applied on Latin American bananas imported into the European Union.

"We believe that starting banana production in Angola and Mozambique is an important strategic step that will be very cost-competitive regardless of the eventual outcome of the challenges to the EU tariff import regime," said Fernando Aguirre, chairman and chief executive officer. "These projects will significantly increase our sourcing from tariff-free ACP countries, reaching an estimated 20 to 30 percent of our European volume of premium bananas. "

The agreement signed in Benguela, Angola, marks the debut of Chiquita in Angola and of ESCOM in the agricultural sector. Contingent upon necessary governmental approvals, the Agricultural Development Company of Angola, a subsidiary of ESCOM group and the Angolan company Hipergesta, will establish banana production in the province of Benguela, with an investment of more than $60 million (euro 40 million) provided by the Agricultural Development Company of Angola. In addition, Chiquita recently entered into an agreement with Matanuska Africa Limited for a similar project that is already underway to develop banana production in Mozambique.

While Chiquita will not provide capital for either project, the company will support the projects with its expertise in farm development, good agricultural practices, training of local workers, logistics, marketing and distribution to European markets of Chiquita branded product. The first commercial exports to Europe are expected in 2010, after planting anticipated to begin later this year.

Earth Times

Efforts to revive Angola's coffee sector under way

Angola was once the fourth largest producer of coffee in the world and oil exports have helped to bring about economic recovery after almost three decades of civil war. But while oil generates much needed foreign exchange, it is the coffee sector that the government and supporting organisations are looking to as a means of restoring rural livelihoods.

The Angolan coffee industry was once dominated by large plantations, which supplied about 70 per cent of the annual coffee harvest. They had their own processing facilities and were mostly run by Portuguese settlers. After independence the majority of the plantations were nationalised but, with the departure of the Portuguese, the experience of new farm managers was limited and a combination of mismanagement, loss of labour and poor supply of essential inputs led to a significant decrease in yields.

Privatisation of the state farms during the 1990s led to the plantations being subdivided. But most owners found rehabilitation of their coffee farms increasingly difficult due to insecurity and civil strife. Many of the larger farms were abandoned during the war and some remainland mined . Large areas of coffee still grow unattended, the berries are never harvested. Most plantations are also old, pests and disease seriously constrain yields, crop husbandry is poor, and inputs are either unavailable or too expensive. In addition, essential support services, including research, extension and credit facilities, no longer exist.

Compared to more than US$180 million at its peak in 1974, coffee exports currently amount to only around US$250,000. During the harvesting season, the flow of coffee to exporters is often erratic and coffee frequently has to be blended from different sources and stored for long periods in order to accumulate sufficient volumes for shipping. In order to rehabilitate the coffee sector, and for its export potential to be realised, significant investment is needed. However, the banking system in Angola remains risk-averse. With only four exporting companies working in a difficult environment, reviving the coffee sector has so far proved a challenge.

To address some of the current constraints and assist in improving the coffee sub-sector, CABI is coordinating a pilot project funded by the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and the Angola Government through the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) UK. The three-year project, which began in March 2006, aims to provide 4,000 previously displaced families with two-to-five hectare plots from the subdivision of abandoned coffee estates. The acquisition of title deeds by each farmer collaborating in the project is also being facilitated, as well as other forms of social support including the construction of houses, schools and clinics.

In contrast to colonial times, smallholders now account for almost 90 per cent of coffee production in Angola. They achieve relatively good yields: but the lack of processing facilities restricts them to selling their coffee as dried cherries. To improve production, over three million coffee seedlings have been raised, mainly on farmers' fields, although a supplementary nursery has been established at a research station. Over 2000 farmers,extensionists and scientists have been trained in various aspects of coffee production, processing and marketing.

In collaboration with a local bank, an effective micro-credit system has been set up and another partner... has trained them in effective management. So far, over 30 business entities have been legally constituted. The creation of farmer cooperatives and associations will also be encouraged to enable value-added processing.

Despite the success of the project so far and government efforts to address the problems of poor infrastructure, changing attitudes has been testing. Many farmers had become accustomed to handouts and provision of assistance from aidNGOs that distributed free relief during the prolonged years of civil strife. But farmers are now more understanding that financial assistance is available - as loans that have to repaid.

New Agriculturalist

Post-war Angola seeks to revive agriculture

Angola's economy is booming as a result of growing oil production but much of its fresh fruit, vegetables and meat is still imported. It is often more cost-effective and convenient to import produce from countries such as South Africa, the agricultural giant of the southern Africa region, than it is to have them grown locally and brought to market.

Angolan officials blame inefficient farming, poor roads and the devastation of a 27-year civil war for the distortions. "Certain products such as apples are easier to bring from South Africa than locally. This is because of inadequate logistics and transport. Our big disability is the poor state of roads, which makes the cost of transport very high," said Joaquim Gomes, the national director of agriculture.

Agriculture was a significant part of the Angolan economy under Portuguese rule, with coffee exports being one of the mainstays of exports. The colony was the world's third largest coffee exporters between 1973 and 1974. Production, however, collapsed shortly after independence in 1975 and during the ensuing civil war, which ended in 2002. Four million people were displaced during the conflict, bringing the agricultural sector to a virtual standstill.

Now the country is trying to change all this.Gomes said the government was developing a network of warehouses, packaging and refrigeration facilities and wholesale markets and supermarkets to help farmers get their produce to consumers. "We are now working with farmers to stock them up with local goods to slowly replace imported goods," Gomes said.

He said 2.2 million families stood to benefit directly from the plan, dubbed PRESILD, to move the country's agricultural production from subsistence-level farming to a commercially viable one capable of feeding Angola's 15 million people.

Current coffee production is about one percent of what it was shortly before the Portuguese left. Only about 10 percent of the country's arable land is under cultivation, according to Gomes. The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) concedes that it must start with basics as it tries to revive the agricultural sector.

"Our primary objective is to guarantee food security to the population and to simultaneously work towards alleviating poverty," said Gomes, who noted that cereal production had significantly improved since the end of the war.

Foreign firms also have expressed an interest in producing ethanol and biodiesel in Angola, an idea that the government is considering and one that could give a boost to the agricultural sector.

Reuters

Angola’s annual fishery output trebles

Angola’s annual continental fishery output has trebled to over 15,000 tonnes in the last three years, Angola’s Artisan Fisheries Development Institute (IPA), has said.

IPA director-general Agostinho Duarte attributed the large-margin increase of fishery output to the acquisition of "new fishing boats and training courses for fishermen" in recent years. All the country’s 18 provinces "have a fishing fleet of 30 to 40 boats each", he said, adding the goal was to expand the provincial fishing fleet to at least 100 boats in the years ahead.

He said the fishing fleets of Moxico and Kuando Kubango provinces would be expanded to at least 100 boats each. "The number of boats available in the two provinces is still insufficient to increase the volume of catches, since the provinces have greater potentials of fishery," he said.

Angola relaunched fisheries across the country in 2003, a year after the end of the 27-year civil war. To boost them, the government in 2006 gave the green light for the importation of modern fishing equipment.

Xinhua

China to train African agricultural technicians

China is to train 10,000 agricultural technicians for Africa over the next four years, Professor Heping Jiang from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences said in the Angolan province of Moxico on April 11.

Heping, who headed a mission to apply the program to four Angolan provinces (Moxico, Bié, Huila and Kuand Kubango), said a total of 60 Angolan technicians would be trained.

MacauHub

Brazil's growing involvement in African agriculture

The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) set up an office in Accra, Ghana in December 2006 to coordinate Brazil's agricultural collaboration with African countries. The coordinator of Embrapa Africa, Cláudio Bragantini, said the office in Ghana works as an agent to facilitate the link between financial organizations and governments. "We also have our doors open to private companies in agribusiness," he said.

In February Bragantini, visited Hasan II Academy, a university in Morocco that has an agricultural research institute. Being explored is a partnership in the production of bio diesel, which may be obtained from Castor bean and palm, plants of the region that can grow with little rain. According to Bragantini, ""The Moroccans are very interested in being trained in the area of biotechnology and the development of agricultural projects with the private sector."

Libya has expressed interest in a partnership in the area of irrigation. "Libya finances many projects in the agricultural area in Ghana and in other countries in the region," said Bragantini. A project being discussed is to pipe large volumes of water discovered when drilling for oil and use it for irrigated agriculture. "The Libyan government has great interest in the project and the financial means, and Embrapa has the necessary technology," he said.

Bragantini said the greatest demand from governments is related to small farmers. "We have technology developed in the semi-arid regions of Brazil that may adapt well to the climate and soil in Africa." Also of particular interest to agriculturalists in Africa are direct planting and minimum tillage projects that promote integration between crops and livestock farming. "In savannas a large part of the soil is degraded and needs recovery."

So far the Embrapa researchers based in the Ghana office have visited Angola, Kenya, Benin, Togo and Mozambique. Angola, for example, is particularly interested in developing commercial agriculture, such as the cultivation of soybean for bio fuel extraction. "All countries are seeking the development of bio energy technology," noted Bragantini.

Mozambique wants to strengthen the Institute for Agrarian Research of Mozambique (Iiam). "We have a project in progress that begun prior to the set up of the office in Ghana, which includes improvement of Iiam research processes," said .

There is also great demand for technologies for the processing of cassava, an important food crop in many African countries. Embrapa has trained technicians in Ghana in this area.