Danone has agreed to acquire all of Brookside Dairy’s Tanzanian dairy business, less than three years after investing in a 40% stake. The buyout will be completed through Brookside Holdings – the wholly owned subsidiary that acted as a vessel for the French company’s acquisition of a minority stake in 2014.At the time, FoodBev reported that Brookside Dairy had annual revenues of €130 million and was East Africa’s leading dairy products group. Tanzania’s competition commission confirmed: “The FCC has received a merger notification to the effect that Brookside Holdings intends to acquire 100% of the issued share capital in Brookside Dairy Tanzania. FCC is currently investigating the intended acquisition in line with the provisions of the FCA and the FCC procedure rules.”
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Despite international efforts to address food insecurity, around 108 million people in the world were severely food insecure in 2016, a dramatic increase compared with 80 million in 2015, according to a new global report on food crises released in Brussels today.The report, whose compilation required integrating several measurement methodologies, represents a new and politically innovative collaboration between the European Union and USAID, regional food security institutions together with UN agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and Unicef. The dramatic increase reflects the trouble people have in producing and accessing food due to conflict, record-high food prices in local markets and extreme weather conditions such drought and erratic rainfall caused by El Niño.
Professor Alastair Sutton, a former European adviser to the Crown Dependencies, recently warned the House of Lords of a EU “blacklisting” of the Crown Dependencies’ financial sectors as part of a drive to deal with tax havens.He told the committee the EU was undertaking a “so-called blacklisting process where serious damage to the economies of Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man… could be done if the EU blacklist these territories despite the fact that they have ticked all the boxes internationally in the OECD for compliance with tax, anti-money laundering legislation and financial regulation”.
Africa is ready to take its place on the world stage, as the poultry industry is evolving, from a national and regional basis to a more global platform, according to RaboResearch’s latest report ‘Time for Africa: Capturing the African Poultry Investment Opportunity’.The year-on-year growth in the global poultry markets is set to continue: a demand growth of more than 60% is expected over the next 20 years. This leads to significant global investment streams in an industry that is evolving, from a national and regional basis to a more global platform. Most recent investments have focused on Europe, the Americas and Asia, driven by bullish market circumstances. Africa has attracted relatively limited investor interest. But this is changing.
The Government has pumped more than $18 million into the establishment of an in vitro propagation of Irish potato seeds programme in a bid to reduce the country’s dependence on imported seeds. The Government is also hoping that the programme will increase the yields of Irish potato farmers across the island. The project, which is a component of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries’ National Irish Potato Development Programme, will be implemented with the assistance of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), the Scientific Research Council (SRC), and the Northern Caribbean University (NCU)
The sugar produced in Mozambique will continue to enter the market of the European Union (EU) free of tariffs and quotas, according to assurances given last week by the organisation, Mozambican daily newspaper Notícias reported. Mozambican sugar is exported to the EU under the “Everything but Arms” (EBA) trade agreement in place since 2011 and which allows products from less developed countries, such as Mozambique, access to the European market free of customs duties and quotas. Apart from sugar, under the EBA scheme, Mozambique exports other products to the EU market with the same benefits.
Vanuatu hosted its first ever Agritourism Festival from 9-11th November at the Agriculture Complex- Tagabe, in the capital city of Port Vila. Agriculture and food production are critical to Vanuatu’s prosperity and welfare: for food security and job creation. Given that animal, vegetable and other food products equate to over 82% of the island’s economy, Vanuatu boasts rich agricultural resources. Yet, the country is still heavily reliant on imports, which in 2011 amounted to over 280 million USD (more than four times the amount of exports). Vanuatu, like many other Pacific Island nations, relies on cheap, calorific and low nutritional food imports from the USA and Australasia.
The sugar industry is widely recognised as making a significant socio-economic contribution to many African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, particularly in generating export earnings and creating employment in rural areas. Nevertheless, it is important to note that many ACP countries have been diversifying to reduce their reliance on the sugar industry. This means that, in some countries, sugar is not as important as it was in the past. The ACP sugar group is diverse. It includes some of the world’s lowest cost sugar producers where production has been growing over time (Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia).
The African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Sugar Group says it welcomes the new study on the sugar industry undertaken by the European Union. The “Study on Current and Forecast Market Developments for ACP Sugar Suppliers to the EU Market” sets out a comprehensive assessment of the risks for ACP/EBA sugar producers as a result of changes to the EU sugar regime and it contains a series of helpful tips. The study was undertaken by United Kingdom-based Cardno/LMC International and funded by the European Union. Chairman of the ACP Sugar Group, Samuel Chandler, who is also the Barbados Ambassador to the EU, said the ACP will actively pursue the implementation of the recommendations.