Proparco is supporting a major player in the agriculture sector in Zimbabwe and Zambia

Seedco Group was set up as a cooperative in Harare (Zimbabwe) in 1940 and is the leading seed manufacturer in Africa. Its main shareholder, the French Limagrain Group, is the 4th largest seed company worldwide and the leader for vegetable seeds. Seedco Group selects, produces and markets hybrid field seeds, including corn, wheat, soja, sorghum, groundnuts, beans and cowpea. Corn seeds account for over 70% of its sales. Seedco directly employs some 400 people full-time during the harvest period.

This financing involves a USD 25m senior loan divided into two tranches, each for USD 12.5m, with a 7-year maturity. It firstly aims to finance the Group’s research and international expansion via a loan to Seedco Zambia and, secondly, Seedco Zimbabwe’s developments, including the construction of a corn dryer, which will increase the production capacity, double farmers’ harvests and do more to address the climate risk.

On the economic and social front, the project should provide a million more people in Zimbabwe and Zambia with access to Seedco corn over the next five years. The project should also contribute to creating 95 additional direct jobs out of a total of 475 jobs. In addition, the project should support some 14,000 indirect jobs over the next five years, mainly for agricultural employees.   

On the climate front, the installation of a corn drying unit by Seedco will allow farmers, who currently dry their corn in the sun, to harvest their ear corn earlier in the year and give it to Seedco to dry. This will considerably reduce losses related to climate hazards. Furthermore, Seedco is partly reducing its clients’ vulnerability to climate change, by developing hybrid corn varieties adapted to the climates in the regions where the Group operates and introducing shorter ripening cycles to make them more resistant to climate hazards.