The fund will be utilised to tackle Ghana’s food import problem
Ghana-based agribusiness start-up Green Gold Farms has completed raising $1.6 million from Absa Bank Ghana, Diaspora Capital, Channel Ventures, EPMT Fund, and several early-stage seed investors.
The capital raised will allow Green Gold Farms to invest primarily in capital equipment to scale up production of organic and non-GMO crops such as maize and soybeans; generate large numbers of well-paying, sustainable jobs; and launch an out-grower programme for smallholder farmers. The company has partnered with local communities to secure over 60,000 acres of fertile land in the Northern and Eastern Regions of Ghana. The company will use its huge land concessions to engage in commercial-scale food production and, in the process, create tens of thousands of jobs, boosting the regional and national economies.
Green Gold Farms is also developing an innovative out-grower scheme that allows smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by training them on regenerative agriculture best practices, enabling them to produce on larger plots of land, and providing them with all of the necessary inputs and mechanisation.
Over time, the company aims to cede its primary production to these smallholder farmers and move up the value chain into processing and, eventually, into manufacturing. The company is attempting to develop and scale a sustainable food production model in partnership with the public and private sector that can be applied to developing countries around the world to help lift billions of people out of poverty and to do it in an environmentally sustainable manner.
