São Paulo – The countries in North Africa want to increase their food production and are seeking out Brazil’s agribusiness expertise and technology. Potential cooperation efforts were discussed at the seminar Brazil and North Africa – Opportunities in Agribusiness and Food Security , held this Tuesday (24th) in São Paulo.
The event was held by the Brazil-Africa Institute with backing from the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and took place at the headquarters of the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp). The seminar featured dignitaries from Sudan, Mauritania, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, Brazilian government officials, and executives from Brazilian enterprises that operate in the African continent.
Hadil Fontes da Rocha Vianna, the undersecretary-general for Cooperation, Culture and Trade Promotion at Brazil’s Ministry of External Relations, presented trade figures for Brazil and North African countries and stressed the need to increase value-added bilateral trade.
“Our trade with the [North African] sub-region countries is growing constantly, having gone from US$ 7.8 billion in 2010 to US$ 9.1 billion in 2014. For agriculture, over the same time frame, sales increased by 18.5%. In effect, at this time, over 70% of exports from Brazil to North Africa consist of agricultural products,” he revealed.
“There is a need, however, for these trade relations to become even more diverse through the addition of higher value-added, technological products such as agricultural machinery and equipment, automobiles and other finished goods, so we may benefit from the productive and inventive capabilities of the Brazilian and African industries, for the prosperity of our peoples,” Vianna said.
Arab Chamber CEO Michel Alaby underscored the importance of African and American countries to ensuring global food supplies. “My theory is that over time, it will become clear that there are two main continents when it comes to food security, namely America and Africa, and it is plain to see that Asia is the leading consumer,” he said. Alaby was the mediator for one of the panels.
Flávio Eduardo Castelar, CEO of Arranjo Produtivo Local do Álcool (Apla), an association of sugarcane and ethanol industry players, discussed opportunities for growing the plant in North African countries. He believes that Sudan, for instance, has a good market for cane, since several projects for stepping up production are underway. “They also mix ethanol into their gasoline,” he said, pointing out a similarity with Brazil.
Castelar also highlighted the potential for increasing farming machinery sales to Sudan. “Their entire sugarcane harvesting is done mechanically, and this paves the way for the selling of machines. And they will tend to move towards mechanical planting, which they don’t do yet,” he stressed.
The costs of agricultural production in Sudan were the main topic in the presentation from Mudathir Abdulghani Hassan, the minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation of Khartoum State. According to him, irrigation-related spending, for instance, can make up as much as 49.5% of total production costs for vegetables and up to 84.2% for fruit in his country.
Larbi Moukharik, the Moroccan ambassador in Brasília, said his country “has a vocation for agriculture” and remarked that the sector is undergoing a modernization process. “Farmers are becoming entrepreneurs, businessmen,” he said, emphasizing the professionalization of Moroccan farming, fuelled by the Green Morocco Plan, devised in 2008 to develop the agricultural industry.
Karim Sebti, who represents Morocco’s Atlas Olive Oils company in Brazil, said the North African country produces 150,000 tons of olive oil a year and ships about 20,000 tons abroad. He also said his company is in talks to sell the product to a major supermarket chain in Brazil.
Abdellahi Nagi, Mauritania’s ambassador in Brazil, reveals that the agricultural sector accounts for 14% of the GDP of his country and that the government created several mechanisms to develop the agribusiness. Among the items with greatest potential for exports, he pointed out fishing.
“We don’t export fish to Brazil yet. Our main buyers are the European Union countries and Japan. The [Brazilian] demand exists, but we haven’t done it due to bureaucratic procedures”, he said.
Fishing, according to Nagi, can also create opportunities for technology transfer. “We export the fish that practically just came out of the water. We’re looking for partnerships on [technology] transferring. Sold canned, the fish price raises by up to 40%”, he pointed out.
Erick Schaltza, head of the office of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) in Ghana, reminds that, in Africa, the agricultural sector is basically formed by family farms and that while in Brazil the production grows more than the cultivated area, in Africa this only happens with the expansion of the cultivated area.
“In Africa, the production grows [only] with the addition of new areas. There’s a need to expand the production capacity in Africa”, said Schaltza. The researcher also pointed out that there aren’t any Embrapa’s projects being developed in North Africa countries. The corporation’s projects are located only in sub-Saharan countries. “We have well-established equipment and services industries. These are some of the areas in which we can think of building closer ties in the future”, he said.
Abderrahmane Chafii, director-general of the Agency for Agricultural Investment Promotion (Apia), said that his country offers subsidies of 7% to 25% for projects of the agri-food industry. He also emphasized the importance of the partnership with Brazil for the development of family agriculture in Tunisia. “We need this know-how and can develop cooperation in this sense”, he assessed.
Hossam Zaki, Egypt’s ambassador in Brasilia, said that food consumption in his country surpasses the production of the main products of the local agricultural industry, revealing that the Egyptian market has a large demand still to be fullfilled. “Wheat is an essential food in Egypt. We produce roughly 8.5 million tons and consume 19 million tons per year”, he illustrated.
Celso Marcondes, director of the African branch of Lula Institute (institution created by the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) said that Brazilian businessmen shouldn’t wait to cease the opportunities in Africa. According to him, Brazil and the African countries have one thing in common, which is the need for a combination of family agriculture with the agribusiness (large producers).
“A great opportunity that has opened is to help and work in partnership with Africans in food production, but without allowing the agribusiness to bring an end to family farming”, he said. “The development of the African continent won’t stop and Brazil can’t lose opportunities”, he added.
Also attending the seminar: João Bosco Monte, president of the Brazil Africa Institute; Antônio Bessa, associate director of the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs of Fiesp (Federation of Industries of São Paulo State); Newton de Melo, director of Foreign Affairs of Fiesp; Christiani Buani, head of programs of the Centre of Excellence against Hunger; Alexandre Trabbold, regional director of the Brazil Africa Institute; Lucas Gutierrez, business manager of the company Agrícola Famosa; Paulo Roberto Araújo, head of Africa office of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES); and Rafael Benke, international advisor.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum and Sérgio Kakitani
