Zambia Seed Company Limited (Zamseed) and Silverlands Tanzania Limited (Silverlands Tanzania) have been named as two of Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies 2022 in an inaugural report published today by The Financial Times. The report names the top 75 companies across the continent as measured by the strongest revenue growth between 2017 and 2020. Only six businesses from the agricultural sector made the top 75.
Zamseed achieved revenue growth of 55.9% p.a., ranking 15th overall and Silverlands Tanzania achieved revenue growth of 40.4% p.a., ranking 25th overall. Both companies have continued to achieve similar growth rates despite the pandemic.
SilverStreet Capital has allocated capital to both Silverlands Tanzania and Zamseed. Advising two funds, Silverlands I, the largest African agricultural fund, and Silverlands II, SilverStreet Capital invests across the agricultural value chain including the seed sector, primary production, processing, protein and storage. The investments of the two funds have brought a multitude of positive impacts to the region, employing ~10,400 people and with direct economic benefits for ~577,000 people, who have seen their annual incomes rise, on average, by over 50%.
Zamseed is a regional champion in the research and development of hybrid seed adapted to smallholder farming requirements in Sub-Saharan Africa. Hybrid seed provides an opportunity to increase smallholder farmer yields and when combined with technical assistance in terms of farming technique can imply a doubling in yields per hectare, which is achievable within one year. Zamseed has developed non-GMO seed with traits attractive to smallholder farmers, including drought- and disease-tolerance. Zamseed sells a wide variety of seed products including cereal grains (maize, wheat, millet, sorghum, rice), legumes (soya, groundnuts), pulses (pigeon peas, cow peas) and sunflower.
Silverlands II first invested in Zamseed in early 2018 and has helped to regenerate the business and to support the business’ new growth and regional expansion. In 2021, 160,000 farmers utilised Zamseed products (up from 48,000 in 2017, the year prior to Silverlands II’s investment). Additionally, it is estimated that due to the increased yield, Zamseed has prevented 104,000 hectares from being deforested, saving emissions equivalent to the annual emissions of eight US coal-fired power stations.
“SilverStreet has, through its investments and guiding hand, helped to re-energise Zamseed and to support its expansion to create a regional seed champion. Zamseed’s extraordinary growth is testament to its management team and the consistent support of Silverlands as its largest shareholder, through the pandemic and Zambia’s recent difficult economic environment,” says Jordon Soko, Chairman of Zamseed.
Zamseed currently sells seed in six countries: Zambia, Tanzania, Angola, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, almost exclusively to smallholder farmers.
Silverlands Tanzania is an integrated poultry business that produces high quality poultry feed and day-old chicks. From a standing start in 2014, it is now the largest feed producer in Tanzania and the third largest producer of day-old chicks, selling 14 million in 2021.
Before Silverlands I created Silverlands Tanzania, the Tanzanian poultry sector remained undeveloped because of inefficient breeds and poor-quality feed. STL introduced new poultry breeds for layers and broilers as well as the Sasso breed, a dual-purpose breed suited to the free-range, village environment. Silverlands Tanzania’s chick and feed products are aimed at smallholder farmers who represent the very large majority of poultry production in Tanzania. With better feed and breeds, Tanzanian poultry farmers are able to produce poultry profitably and demand growth has been substantial. Increased chicken and egg production has helped to reduce stunting in children, a common problem in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Silverlands Tanzania introduced the first soya processing into Tanzania and this has helped to allow soya beans into rotation with maize for smallholder grains farmers, increasing sustainability from a previous, largely mono-cropping environment. Silverlands Tanzania currently buys maize and soya from 29,000 smallholder farmers.
Silverlands Tanzania created and operates 19 distribution centres across Tanzania with a chain of over 350 retail outlets selling its products exclusively to 134,000 smallholder poultry farmers, some 75% of whom are women. The incomes of these smallholder farmers have increased by over 50% because of Silverlands Tanzania.
“We are proud of Silverlands Tanzania’s exceptional growth in Tanzania over the past decade. It has shown how a business can be built which is profitable, has extraordinary growth and, has a huge social impact, raising the incomes of tens of thousands of smallholder farmers,” says Dr. Ben Moshi, Chairman of Silverlands Tanzania.