Improving the livelihoods of livestock smallholders and other value chain actors through value addition and marketing is constrained by lack of finance, working capital, affordable high-quality inputs and well-structured value chains. Even with a high demand for agricultural financing in Africa, not more than 1% of commercial lending goes to agriculture, with even less availed for livestock enterprises.
But efforts by research and development partners are offering renewed hope for livestock financing in Southern Africa. This was revealed at an International Conference on Livestock Value Chain Finance and Access to Credit, organized by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in partnership with the Swaziland Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise (SWADE) and Swaziland’s Micro Finance Unit (MFU) 21-23 Feb 2017.
The main objectives of the conference were to:
- Demonstrate sound business case models for low-cost feeding regimes
- Divide the value chain actors into segmented sub-groups linked together
- Share experiences and research in helping smallholder livestock producers/actors access finance/credit
- Support a productive dialogue among livestock value chain actors, financial institutions, scholars, private-sector companies and government institutions
- Asses ways to replicate and scale success to more low-income countries/regions
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