African Potash enters joint-venture agreement with FinComEco Limited
African Potash has entered into a Joint Venture Agreement with FinComEco Limited, a subsidiary of GMEX Group Limited, it has emerged on Tuesday, to jointly develop and operate a range of platforms, projects and initiatives in the agricultural commodity markets sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.
African Potash Ltd
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11:51 28/03/18
Focused on building a platform for the mining, production and distribution of fertiliser, African Potash reported the projects and initiatives, underpinned by the deployment of complete blockchain-based agricultural ecosystem solution, would enable farmers to enhance productivity and potentially obtain a better price for their produce, providing opportunities for further income growth in the long-term.
Demand would be driven by the provision of microloans, expected to bear interest at approximately 12% per annum, by the company direct to Small Scale Farmers (SSF), the company said in a statement.
The company also said that shareholders will gain from the revenue from the sale of fertiliser and other inputs direct to SSFs, as well as the sale of outputs and from interest on the loans.
Chris Cleverly, executive chairman, said: "By linking agriculture to blockchain technology, the joint-venture will facilitate agricultural value-chain efficiencies through the provision of strategic value-added services.
"Demand for agricultural inputs will be driven by the provision of low cost microloans direct to Small Scale Farmers for them to purchase inputs from our designated warehouses; with repayment in the form of warehouse receipts of SSF outputs.
"In addition, other value-added services such as the provision of market information, training and capacity building will be provided, working together with FinComEco and other appropriate partners. The blockchain system tokens are expected to generate other e-commerce opportunities as demand evolves.
"This agreement represents a further step in our strategy to build a vertically integrated fertiliser business from initial resource through to selling, using blockchain technology, direct to the farm. This strategy is reflected in the proposed change of name to Block Commodities limited."