About 10,000 farmers and commodity suppliers from Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe are due to receive $20 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB) so they increase revenues and produce quality crops for export.<\/p>\n
This is part of Meridian\u2019s Soft Commodity Finance Facility designed to provide pre-and post-shipment finance along various stages of Meridian\u2019s soft commodity value chain operations in the three countries concerned.<\/p>\n
In a media statement, AfDB says the facility will be used to provide funding to purchase farm inputs for farmers to ensure consistency and quality of the commodities being supplied; purchase of soft commodities from over 10, 000 farmers in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeridian is also a major buyer of soft commodities from small-scale farmers using its retail network of over 120 shops spread across rural areas. African Agriculture Fund (AAF) is a shareholder, in which AfDB owns a 20 percent stake,\u201d the statement states.<\/p>\n
AfDB adds that the project conforms to its core operational priority of private sector development in line with the 10-Year Strategy and the Trade Finance Programme, aimed at promoting exports through support to agriculture and SMEs.<\/p>\n
The financial package will enable the Bank to reach small-scale farmers indirectly through Meridian that understands the market in which it has accumulated a 40-year track record; understands the operational risks and is able to mitigate and manage them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeridian was established in 1970 and focuses on production and supply of various agricultural inputs or outputs through a chain of vertically integrated subsidiaries in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe,\u201d says the statement.<\/p>\n
Meridian currently employs over 4,200 employees and is Sadc\u2019s largest commodity aggregators as it distributes over 250,000 metric tons of goods per annum throughout the region.<\/p>\n
Meridian\u2019s key markets in Africa are Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Agriculture in these four countries accounts for approximately 32 percent of GDP and provides a livelihood to 81 percent of the population in the form of smallholder subsistence farming.<\/p>\n
The group uses its retail outlets to distribute farming inputs to small-scale farmers such as fertiliser, seeds and hardware products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About 10,000 farmers and commodity suppliers from Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe are due to receive $20 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB) so they increase revenues and produce quality crops for export. This is part of Meridian\u2019s Soft Commodity Finance Facility designed to provide pre-and post-shipment finance along various stages of Meridian\u2019s soft commodity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":39648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39649,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39645\/revisions\/39649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}