Amatheon Agri Group (Amatheon) has recently announced that it has started the constructional phase of an irrigation project in Mumbwa District, Zambia’s central region, as part of its expansion strategy in the country.
The project includes the construction of two dams which are meant to irrigate separately two farm blocks, which will be expanded by land development and irrigation for a total investment of USD 20 million.
The first dam in Katonga, expected to operate at full capacity as of 2017, will be constructed in partnership with the Japanese company Toyota Tsusho and represents a total investment of USD 10 million.
It will be utilized to develop 2,700 hectares of land for the cropping of maize, wheat and soya, and will be operated by both companies with Amatheon as the majority stakeholder.
The second dam, expected to start operations during the course of 2016, is meant to develop a 10,000 hectares farm block for farming operations, cattle ranching and rain fed cropping.
Amatheon’s Founder and CEO, Mr. Carl Heinrich Bruhn, explained that the partnership between both companies will help to share Toyota’s technical know-how and Amatheon’s expertise on agribusiness with local small farmers, to help them with training and access to international markets.
Amatheon chose Zambia as its main investment destination in Africa in 2011 when the company was launched and started operations acquiring more than 30,000 hectares of land in the west region of the capital Lusaka.
Currently, the company has presence in nine countries in the Sub-Saharan region and has so far invested over USD 50 million in Zambia with a plan to invest an additional USD 380 million over the next two years in the countries where it has presence.
