16 Nov, 2023
Peter Schuurs1 Comment16 November, 2023Agricultural Investment, Farm Management, Farm Turnarounds, Regenerative Agriculture

Developing the Apple Sector in East Africa

  • East Africans love eating fresh apples! Tanzania (TZ) alone currently imports apples valued at $60-70 million p.a., almost all from long-term coldstorage in South Africa; there are similarly large importations of apple juice and ciders.
  • In early-2022, reap partnered with other investors to purchase and assume management of Tamu Tamu Tanzania (TTT), a farm with established apple trees 3-4 years old, with a clear vision for it to catalyse development of TZ’s own apple industry. We envisage over coming years significant direct import replacements of fresh apples and juices/ciders, along with thousands of rural TZ families with much improved livelihoods through long-term tree crop developments.
  • TTT is the only farm in TZ with the two essential ingredients to be the primary supplier in the country (and further afield in East Africa), of grafted young apple trees—a well-established apple rootstock nursery, plus a range of established, suitably-adapted, modern apple tree varieties to supply scion-wood for grafting. These provide the ideal foundation for producing and distributing high-quality young apple trees to local smallholder farmers.
  • There are significant high-altitude (1,600 – 2,800+ metres a.s.l.), cold-climate areas across TZ, especially the Southern Highlands region, well-suited for apple production, and many thousands of local farmers with demonstrated capacity and interest in tree crop production. TTT is already well-engaged with and supporting more than 2,000 of these TZ farmers.
  • TTT will in turn leverage these factors to support development of the TZ apple industry, as an off-taker of high-quality fresh apples marketed through our on-farm coldstores, and deploying a mobile juicing trailer to overcome logistics challenges for timely processing of lower grade fruit into cold-pressed apple juice for sale, and fermenting into ciders.
  • The positive social impact of this initiative is wide-ranging – by year 6 & beyond, ten (10) well-managed apple trees will yield a TZ farmer with net revenues of $250 per annum, typically a 25-35% increase in current disposable income for the family; reaching 15,000+ farmers in this manner will generate $10+ million p.a. additional income into local communities.
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maize-harvest-Uganda
5 Feb, 2021
Peter Schuurs9 Comments5 February, 2021Agricultural Investment, Crop Rotations

2021 Primed for Agricultural Investment!

Welcome to reap‘s updated website.

I lead the team at Rehoboth Equatorial Agtech Partners (reap), providing agribusiness and primary production improvement to equatorial regions of Africa, which is financially robust, while strongly rooted in sound ecological science.

The past year has been marked by unprecedented COVID-19 induced disruptions around the world. Many sectors have been plunged into multiple deep crises that will continue to reverberate for years to come. For any investor wondering how to grow their wealth in the face of wildly volatile stock markets and ten-year government bond yields firmly entrenched at around 1% APR, agriculture provides a well-proven opportunity. Being inflation-resistant and contra-cyclical to many conventional equity investments, the agriculture sector can be an excellent addition to a diversified investment portfolio, possessing the properties of a late-cycle investment with projected long-term healthy and stable growth.

Food is not optional! Demand for basic agriculture commodities remains consistent, especially during the current global emergency. Everyone must eat, even during times of crisis, thus further securing the necessity for investments in agriculture now and through any potential future turmoil.

The sub-Saharan African landscape is dotted with failed agriculture ventures, characterised by ill-informed investors repeating the same old mistakes made by those before them. With more than three decades of work experience in 26 countries, I appreciate better than most the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of these investor mistakes. In the past twenty years, in four African countries, I have overseen the turnarounds of several failing farming enterprises to strong levels of productivity and business performance. Equatorial East Africa is one of the fastest developing regions of the world, and it is ripe with agri-sector opportunities for discerning investors that partner with regionally experienced management expertise.

Consider partnering with reap. Why not message us today?

 

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