The Trade Hub’s agricultural activities are driven by USAID’s Feed the Future Strategy and focus on intra-regional trade in targeted value chains: maize, soybeans and groundnuts. Primary support is directed to the Feed the Future focal countries within the region (Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia) with special emphasis on encouraging investment and technology transfer from South African organizations in line with USAID’s Strategic Partnership with South Africa. The Trade Hub supports initiatives that improve trade in targeted agricultural commodities and improve food security. Read more
As part of a $100,000 Strategic Partnership Grant, the Southern Africa Trade Hub funded seed trials and a seed registration process through Capstone Seeds SA Limited. Capstone Seeds has now successfully tested four maize hybrid seed varieties and 17 soybean seed varieties in four provinces—Maputo, Nampula, Manica, and Tete—in preparation to register the seeds in Mozambique and commercially multiply them for the local market. The activity supports increased investment and technology transfer and will increase the interregional trade of drought-tolerant maize seed.
From March 9-13, the Southern Africa Trade Hub facilitated the first ever investment mission by the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) to Malawi in partnership with the Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE). AFD, an agency of the French state, is a development finance institution that provides investment, de-risking, and technical assistance in support of social and economic development across emerging markets.
The Trade Hub recently awarded a Strategic Partnership Grant to Solidaridad, a regional NGO based in South Africa, to improve food security and revenue generation for smallholder farmers in the districts of Guro, Machize, Mossourize, Tambara and Bárué, in Manica Province, Mozambique.
AMSCO and the Trade Hub have teamed up to develop the Agricultural Storage Investment Fund (ASIF) to assist thousands of smallholder farmers with modern storage facilities financed through the ASIF facility.
The Trade Hub conducted gender integration awareness training in the three Feed the Future (FtF) countries in the SADC region – Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia – in August and September 2014.
On April 4-5, 2014, USAID's Southern Africa Trade Hub supported Agritech Expo, Zambia's first outdoor agricultural event servicing the needs of the entire agricultural value chain.
In October 2014, USAID awarded a Strategic Partnership Grant (SPG) in Malawi to MH Boerdery Konsultante in partnership with the NASFAM (National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi) to improve smallholder groundnut marketability.
The Trade Hub submitted the final concept for an agriculture information and market intelligence platform for the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) in October 2014.
