Export Trading Group (ETG)

Country: Pan Africa

Type of investment: Intermediary

Financial close: November 2015

Tenor: 5 years

Type of Investment: Balance Sheet

S&E Category: B

In November 2015, AATIF entered a USD 30m facility agreement with Export Trading Group (“ETG”), a family-owned agricultural supply chain manager and processor with operations spanning procurement, processing , warehousing, distribution and trade of soft commodities from over 40 countries globally – including 26 African countries.

Through its vast network and broad presence across Africa, the company plays a crucial role in linking local farmers to international markets. The vast majority of its commodities purchased in Africa were acquired from smallholder farmers, partially processed locally and partially sold as raw commodity on both regional and international markets. Beyond providing farmers with access to markets for their produce, ETG supports farmers with training initiatives and access to essential supplies like farming inputs and equipment. Through this combination farmers improve their farming skills leading to improved yields and increased farm earnings.  Further ETG has continued to grow its footprint in local value addition – both in terms of local storage capacities and local processing facilities for various crops. This has generated several thousand employment opportunities for local communities and ETG has paid particular attention to the employment of women at its processing operations.

When AATIF initially provided its facility to ETG, the company was able to source short-term working capital funding from the commercial market, but struggled to obtain long-term working capital for crops with longer production and trade cycles as well as funding for longer term expansion activities. Hence AATIF’s facility contributed to developing a more sustainable financing structure for ETG, dedicated to its Africa operations with a focus on local value addition and export.

Technical Assistance Project Highlight

Climate Smart Cashew project – Mozambique

Challenge: Farmers in Mozambique are struggling with low cashew tree productivity and low incomes, while being increasingly exposed to  climate risks such as desertification. This also affects ETG’s sourcing model in the country.

TA Intervention: To support ETG with selected parts of the implementation of a climate-smart cashew sourcing project in Mozambique, ultimately allowing the company to reach full traceability of its cashew supply chain, capacitate farmers, mitigate climate risks and reduce GHG emissions.

Result: As a result, ETG will have established a resilient climate-smart cashew sourcing network which will lay the foundation for reducing the company’s carbon footprint in Mozambique and reaching full traceability of its cashew supply chain. In addition, smallholder farmers within ETG's sourcing network will be capacitated on GAP, organic farming, and biochar manufacturing.