Export Trading Group (“ETG”)

Press release

March 12, 2021

FMO, FinDev Canada and OeEB support critical food supply in Africa through a working capital loan to ETG

Press Release

FMO, FinDev Canada, and OeEB (the Development Bank of Austria) announced a USD 115mln syndicated loan facility...

Summary of Anticipated Development Impacts

MARKET DEVELOPMENT

The development impact value proposition of this transaction is to improve agricultural output and market opportunities for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (“SSA”), including in least developed countries (“LDCs”), create and maintain local jobs, while providing climate adaptation services to smallholder farmers.
This transaction comes as part of FinDev Canada’s COVID-19 response to support liquidity for agribusiness in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Building the agricultural supply chain infrastructure: ETG operates more than 100 processing plants and 450 warehouses and is one of the largest investors in rural processing and logistics in the agricultural sector of SSA, thereby significantly contributing to reducing post-harvest losses.
Providing inputs and market access to smallholder farmers: ETG is one of the largest importers and distributors of fertilizers and agrichemicals in Africa, reaching smallholder farmers in remote areas which have historically lacked access to agricultural inputs.

Market development

Supporting decent employment in least-developed countries: ETG has more than 5,000 employees across SSA, 60% of which are in LDCs, including Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.

WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

Providing quality jobs for women: ETG provides childcare facilities staffed with teachers on some of its sites in an endeavour to retain and support women workers, who represent 59% of ETG’s 5,000 employees in Africa, for whom the lack of childcare solutions can be a barrier to employment. ETG also has a paid maternity leave policy and provides on-site health services and healthcare insurance to all its employees.
Supporting women smallholder farmers: ETG supports more than 600,000 farmers, approximately 35% of which are women. Through its business model based on farmgate procurement and farmer support, ETG is addressing gender equality gaps in the agricultural sector in SSA by providing women smallholder farmers with increased access to inputs, services and market access for their products.
Creating opportunities for women entrepreneurs: ETG has entrepreneurship programs for women, whereby they provide training to support them in building their own small businesses and integrating them in ETG’s value chain, when possible. For example, 30% of ETG’s container shops for fertilizers in Tanzania and Mozambique are run by women.

CLIMATE ACTION

Providing climate adaptation services: ETG has a team of agronomists in SSA who advise farmers on climate-smart agricultural and irrigation practices, thereby improving the use of agricultural inputs and water during the cropping cycle. These advisory services support farmers in adapting to climate change impacts, such as more frequent and prolonged droughts, and increased variability in precipitation patterns.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions: ETG measures its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions at all sites and has implemented various initiatives to reduce its energy consumption, including energy efficiency measures, improved lighting and ventilation in plants and rolling out employee awareness programs.