Seed-Co to boost Malawi output
by Business Reporter
13/05/2011 00:00:00
CROP-SEED company, Seed-CO, which has operations in several African nations, plans to boost production more than three-fold at its Malawian unit this year, Alec Kasaila, its spokesman in Malawi has said.
The company will invest $4.6 million to build a processing plant in the capital, Lilongwe, Kasaila said on Friday. Production will probably increase to 15,000 metric tons of seed a year from about 4,000 tons, he said.
“The plant will be completed this year and will process primarily hybrid-corn seed, as well as soybean seed and groundnut seed,” he said.
Seed Co has been expanding on the continent and controls more than half the maize seed market in Malawi and Zambia, 40 percent of the Tanzanian market. It is also testing new maize varieties for sale in Ethiopia and West Africa.
The company, which also produces wheat and cotton seed, last year announced plans to raise maize seed production to 100,000 tonnes annually in the next three years, nearly double the projected output in 2010/2011.
Sales in the region were also boosted by demand from governments providing free and subsidised seeds to poor farmers in Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
"The increased donor support to governments in the region to improve food security will continue to push up demand for seed for the foreseeable future and that should see the company benefitting from that," group chief executive, Morgan Nzwere said last year.
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