{"id":15070,"date":"2012-09-29T05:07:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T03:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/africa-money-feast-and-famine-for-africa-farm-investment\/"},"modified":"2012-09-29T05:07:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T03:07:27","slug":"africa-money-feast-and-famine-for-africa-farm-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/africa-money-feast-and-famine-for-africa-farm-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"AFRICA MONEY-Feast and famine for Africa farm investment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Private equity scouring continent for opportunities<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Small farmers struggle for financing<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Swathes of arable land lie fallow<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, Sept 28 (Reuters) &#8211; African agriculture has a<br \/>\nbig investment problem: lots of private equity interest but few<br \/>\nopportunities because most farms and companies are too small to<br \/>\nabsorb the cash or provide attractive returns.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>With only a third of its 630 million hectares of arable land<br \/>\nunder cultivation and large quantities of water flowing<br \/>\nuntapped, Africa is the last great agricultural frontier, its<br \/>\nsoil coveted by Asian giants such as China and India.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Soaring grain prices and global food inflation are spurring<br \/>\ninvestor interest in African farming, trends that are also<br \/>\neating into household income on the world&#8217;s poorest continent<br \/>\nand threatening food riots like those seen in 2008.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The stakes are high in a region where agriculture still<br \/>\naccounts for about a third of gross domestic product but remains<br \/>\nundeveloped and rain-fed, with most farms tilled by peasants for<br \/>\nsubsistence instead of sale.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What Africa has going for itself is that it has the land<br \/>\navailability and space to grow agricultural production in a much<br \/>\nmore significant manner,&#8221; said Joseph Rohm, a portfolio manager<br \/>\nat Investec Asset Management, which oversees some $3 billion in<br \/>\nAfrica.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Private equity scouring continent for opportunities * Small farmers struggle for financing * Swathes of arable land lie fallow By Helen Nyambura-Mwaura JOHANNESBURG, Sept 28 (Reuters) &#8211; African agriculture has a big investment problem: lots of private equity interest but few opportunities because most farms and companies are too small to absorb the cash [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-15070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}