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AFRICABIZ
VOL 1- ISSUE: 39
JULY
15 - AUGUST 14, 2002
Previous
Issue
Editor: Dr. Bienvenu-Magloire
Quenum
Click here for contact & support console
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WORD FROM THE EDITOR
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Dear visitor and international investor,
We
warmly welcome you, if this is
your first visit to Africabiz
Online - The ultimate newsletter
on trading and investing in 49
sub-Saharan African countries.
If you are a regular and faithful
reader, welcome back.
If you are a regular and faithful reader, welcome back.
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G-8
JURY POSTPONED THE EXAMINATION OF
NEPAD
The New Partnership For Africa's Development
- Nepad - endorsed by the Organization for African Unity's
Summit (OAU) held in Lusaka, Zambia, on July 11, 2001
had been presented before the G-8 heads of states two-day
(26-28 June 2002) meeting at Kananaskis, Canada.
On June 28, 2002 the meeting ended up with promise from
the participants to properly address the matter on the
next meeting scheduled for Paris, France next year.
France's Jacques Chirac declared to the gathering that:
"The G8 was unanimous in being optimistic -
and I am one of the optimists - about growth" ...Promising
to focus again on Africa's needs when he hosts the next
G8 summit next year. Click
here for more.
The Promoters of NEPAD - SA's
Mbeki, Algeria's Bouteflika, Nigeria's
Obassanjo, and Senegal's
Wade have been working on the project since 4 years..
Expectation was high to getting final approval stamp
from the G-8 at the Canadian meeting.
Instead of a final and decisive approval and financial
support declaration from G-8 heads of states, only vague
promise of a further examination had been issued. And
at next year G-8 meeting there is no certainty that
full financial support will be decided upon to matching
NEPAD promoters' expectations.
The Canadian meeting's rebuff is a surprise only
for those who have "neglected" to take into
account the negative impact that Zimbabwe's land reform
crisis is having on Africa's credibility.
Indeed, G-8's rebuttal was to be expected as one of
the basic concept of NEPAD - Peace, Security, Democracy
and Political Governance Initiative - is daily badly
challenged, since three years running, by Zimbabwe's
Mugabe.
It was obvious, before the Canadian meeting, that G-8's
leaders were not going to give their approval to such
blatant bad governance behavior.
Furthermore, for the time being, NEPAD implementation
strategy is not completely clarified; even if theoretically
it is well laid down into seven directive policies:
1-
Peace, Security, Democracy and Political Governance
Initiative.
2- Economic and Corporate Governance Initiative.
3- Bridging the Infrastructure Gap.
4- Human Resource Development Initiative
5- Capital Flows Initiative.
6- Market Access Initiative.
7- Environment Initiative |
One
can see that these policies are global and not yet linked
to well identified and profit making development
projects. Click
here to further review these initiatives.
Several years will pass by (in the range of one decade
to be conservative) before feasibility studies and business
plans linked to specific regional projects are drafted
and agreed upon by the different African states and
approved by international financing bodies such as the
IMF, the World Bank and so on.
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Therefore, one can predict that Paris G-8 meeting in
year 2003 will not give full support to NEPAD. More
analysis and documentation will be required from NEPAD
sponsors... and time will continue to pass by.
In a previous
delivery titled: COULD NEPAD QUICKLY HELP SOLVING
THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMATIC OF AFRICAN COUNTRIES?
following questions have been raised:
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1- Could the Nepad initiative be the driving
force to solving the urgent and acute economic
development problematic African countries are
now confronted with?
2- Could the basic concept of Nepad - the development
of common and regional infrastructure projects
- be sufficient to triggering the sustained economic
development process needed by each African country?
3- Could Nepad engineer the ultimate economic
take off of any African country?
4- Could Nepad create sufficient riches for African
countries' economies to allowing for the fair
distribution of wealth amongst the populations
on a sustained and permanent basis?
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Quick
argumentation to the contrary had been exposed here.
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MISLEADING
ECONOMIC CONCEPTS
In an article here
available titled: MISLEADING ECONOMIC CONCEPTS TO
BE DISCARDED we dig further into the matter of Regional
Development, that is the driving concept of NEPAD;
to see if it is capable of engineering the much needed
and necessary sustained economic development of Africa.
The conclusion reached is that NEPAD's basic concept
of Regional Development is a misleading one. Regional
Development is not the solution to the acute unemployment
(30 to 60% of the working force) prevailing now in each
African country.
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Therefore, in addition to the efforts made to promoting
Nepad, national African governments will gain more,
in accelerating their development process, if they manage
also to devising and promoting projects oriented development
schemes.
That is to say if they take, right now, necessary steps
to establishing, on their respective national territory,
integrated operations, which link together agriculture,
industrial transformation of crops and expansion of
related services.
The experience of the Asian tigers proved that these
integrated development schemes are more attractive to
private foreign investors and to the international commercial
banking system. Click
here for a case study.
These project oriented integrated schemes are capable
of - contrary to NEPAD, as here
exposed - triggering double-digit economic growth
rate in any African country; the sine qua non for their
economic take off. Click here
for more.
Contributor's Guidelines is here
to review. Your contribution on "How African
countries / entrepreneurs could bridge the developing
gap" is welcome.
Many
thanks for dropping by and see you here on August 15,
2002.
Dr.
B.M. Quenum
Editor
of AFRICABIZ
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BUSINESS
OPPORTUNITIES IN AFRICA
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Several business opportunities with high profit making
potential which are economic
catalysts and components to the Strategy for African Countries - here
available - have been introduced to you. They are listed
in following table.
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a-
SHEA BUTTER (Issues 5,
6,
7,
11,
12,
13)
b- BLUE GOLD (Issues 14,
15,
16,
17,
18,
19)
c- FREEZE-DRIED PAPAIN (Issues 20,
21,
22
and here)
d- KENAF (Issues 23,
24)
e- VEGETABLE OIL (Issues 25,
26,
27
and 28)
f- CEREALS (Issues 30,
31,
32,
33)
g- FRUITS (34,
35,
36,
37,
38)
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TROPICAL FRUITS INDUSTRY AS INCOME
BUILDING POWER FOR AN AFRICAN COMMUNITY /
PART VI : SOME ECONOMIC FIGURES ABOUT THE SETUP OF ONE
HECTARE OF TOMATO AGRIBUSINESS
There are more than 4,000 varieties of the tomato, ranging
from the small, marble-size cherry tomato to the giant
Ponderosa that can weigh more than 1.5 kg.
In Issue 38
the potential market to producing fresh tomato in sub-Saharan
African countries had been estimated at 585,000 metric
tons per year.
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COST OF PRODUCTION OF FRESH TOMATO PER HECTARE
The yield of a tomato field (soil production) depends
on the variety of the tomato seed and the cultural techniques
(soil amendment, irrigation system, pest management,
overhead irrigation or trickle fertigation instead or
simple streaming / overflooding irrigation and so on.)
The most sophisticated the cultural techniques are,
the highest the yield per hectare; that could start
from 5-10 metric ton per hectare to reaching 80 -120
metric tons per hectare in South of Extremadura -Spain.
Table 1 below gives production figures
about some countries:
| PRODUCTION
COSTS COMPARISON - YEAR 1999 |
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Algeria |
Brazil |
Tunisia |
| Cost
US$ - Ha |
1,500 |
2,200 |
2,648 |
| Average
Yield - Metric Ton |
15 |
55 |
43 |
| Cost
- US $ - Metric Ton |
100 |
40 |
61.58 |
| Source:
www.tomatoland.com |
Table 2 below lists the various
items contributing to the costs of production per hectare
of a well organized and managed tomato agribusiness:
| COSTS
OF PRODUCTION PER HECTARE - TABLE 2 |
| ITEMS |
UNIT |
PRICE |
QUANTITY |
TOTAL |
| A
- VARIABLE COSTS / US $ |
| A
- 1 - SOIL AMENDMENTS |
| Composted
manure plus gypsum, fish powder, kelp extract. Etc. |
Metric
Ton |
39 |
6 |
234 |
| A
- 2 - PEST TREATMENT |
| Efficient
approved organic chemicals |
hectare |
95 |
1 |
95 |
| A
- 3 - SEEDS / TRANSPLANTS / IRRIGATION |
| Seeds |
thousand |
3.5 |
60 |
210 |
| Trickle
irrigation |
hectare |
350 |
1 |
350 |
| Tomato
transplants |
hectare |
250 |
1 |
250 |
| A
- 4 - HANDS AND STAFF |
| Technical
staff chief |
hour |
2 |
10 |
20 |
| Permanent
hands |
hour |
.20 |
360 |
72 |
| Seasonal
hands |
hour |
.20 |
400 |
80 |
| A
- 5 - EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE / FUEL |
| Machinery
repairs |
hectare |
15 |
1 |
15 |
| Fuel |
liter |
1 |
40 |
40 |
| A
- 6 - PACKAGING COSTS |
| Picking
plastic baskets |
- |
.25 |
50 |
12.5 |
| Packing
crates |
- |
.25 |
2,500 |
625 |
| Total
Variable Costs |
1,746 |
| B
- FIXED COSTS |
| Machinery
and miscellaneous equipment |
hectare |
350 |
1 |
350 |
| Amortization |
hectare |
35 |
1 |
35 |
| Total
Fixed Costs |
385 |
| C
- MANAGEMENT |
| Supervision
costs |
hour |
60 |
1 |
60 |
| Total
Costs / hectare |
2,191 |
| Adapted
From Dr.
Robin G. Brumfield, Specialist in Farm Management |
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If the technical management of the plantation is well
organized; particularly if trickle irrigation is applied
and pest control up to standards, the expected yield
per hectare could be in the range of 50 metric tons
(conservative estimate) per hectare. That gives the
cost of production of one metric ton of fresh tomato
to be approximately: US $ 43.82, which compares well
with figures in Table
1.
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GROSS REVENUE ESTIMATION
Based on the estimated yield above outlined of 50
metric tons per hectare, one gets the following
table that lists Production (according
to plantation size in hectares) and related Gross Revenue
(Calculated with a minimum of 20% margin on production
costs if the fresh tomato is sold to a concentrate processing
plant.) Let us emphasize that in view of the selling
price of fresh tomato in most of sub-Saharan African
countries, the margin above production cost could easily
be put at 50%:
| GROSS
REVENUES X 1,000 US$ |
| Hectares |
50 |
100 |
200 |
300 |
400 |
500 |
|
Metric tons |
2,500 |
5,000 |
10,000 |
15,000 |
20,000 |
25,000 |
|
Revenues |
21.9 |
43.8 |
87.6 |
131.4 |
175.2 |
219 |
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agencies,
international development
agencies - to make contact through the Free Access Support Console available at this link
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