The Agroinvestment Summit, hosted by African Farming and Food Processing magazine, kicked off on 4 June at The Tower Hotel, London and will run until 5 June
The two-day summit will explore three key areas: the achievement of integrated finance for African agricultural development via cross-border partnerships amongst financial institutions; how to harness processing and packaging opportunities via public-private partnerships for agro-development; and how Brexit will affect future trading and relationships.
Speakers include Biodun Onalaja, chairman and CEO, Hyst Global; Dr. Muhammed Kagu, group head Agric Finance, First Bank of Nigeria; and Vicky Pryce, economist at Centre for Economics and Business Research, UK.
The event will welcome stakeholders from across Africa's farming sector such as government officials and representatives, importers, distributors, agribusiness owners, C-level executives from food companies, trade union members and manufacturers/suppliers of agricultural equipment, machinery and services.
Bradley Barr, group managing director of recruitment company CA Global told African Farming at the summit, “We work in special niche skilled areas. For us it is about how we tap into those skills and identify those skills, where they are in Africa and where they are in the world, so when there are specific investments going to an African country they talk to us as they need to identify those skills.
Barr continued, “First of all you are always going to look for your locals in the diaspora. Then you move on to expats. The core thing about an expat is that you only have to be there for two to five years to pass on the skills. Not all companies do that correctly, but that is in the bigger picture. It’s about skills development in a three to five year period. Africa is so influenced by commodity sectors, there is not enough investment.”
For more information visit: http://www.agroinvestmentsummit.com
