Agri-Vie

Agri-Vie, a private equity fund focused on food and agribusiness investments in sub-Saharan Africa, announces it has acquired a 63% stake in South Africa's largest table olive supplier.

The overall objective of this report is to identify potential interventions to enhance the capacity of newly created private equity funds in agriculture and/or agribusiness in Africa, especially the stimulation of technical assistance to agricultural value chains.

Several African leaders have bought lands in Ethiopia to develop agricultural projects or tourism resorts. They are let to bypass a 2007 ban on export of cereals, still in place for other investors.

Agri-Vie, a private equity fund focused on food and agribusiness investments - including farmland - in subSaharan Africa, closed its first fund with participation from Kellogg Foundation, NorFund, IFC and AfDB.

45 new private equity funds are planning to invest US$2 billion in African agriculture in the next 3-5 years, according to participants at the Africainvestor Agribusiness Project Summit taking place in Durban

African governments need to raise their level of accountability and ensure that they improve and protect their own food security through quid pro quo side-agreements negotiated when they lease or sell their arable land to foreign interests, says Keith Mullin of Thompson Reuters

A move by Madagascar's army-backed leader to nix a huge South Korean farming deal has exposed the risks of such ventures in Africa.

At least three or four private equity funds are currently raising capital with a mandate to invest in agricultural enterprises in Africa.

Private equity fund Agri-Vie will reach its $100 million target for investment in agricultural projects in Africa by March, and could triple it in a second fund

The global food shortage coupled with vast tracts of surplus arable land in Africa made the continent the world's greatest farming opportunity, Avril Stassen, an investment adviser for Agri-Vie's $100 million (R957 million) agribusiness private equity fund, said last week.

Soaring food prices, supply fears among import-dependent countries and rising demand for biofuels have driven up investment in agricultural land, notably in Africa.