AGRICULTURAL AGGREGATOR MODEL
For many small-scale farmers, it remains a challenge to produce at the scale and the quality standards that large food producers demand. To overcome this, farmers need to graduate from being standalone entities and develop the operational and financial capacity to compete sustainably at commercial levels. To reach this level often requires several years of development support, which adds complexity to corporate supply chains.
To address these challenges and assure the ongoing participation of smallholder farmers in its value chain, Tiger Brands introduced a unique and innovative model. The Agricultural Aggregator Model makes a targeted effort to develop black farmers, in particular black women farmers, at scale while growing the number of black suppliers within Tiger Brands.
Aggregators are new expert black-owned farming companies that work directly with black farmers to provide technical and management skills. As fully-fledged business entities themselves, aggregators procure from multiple black farmers and enter into commercial agreements with corporates such as Tiger Brands, providing better guarantees on tonnages, delivery timeframes, and quality standards.
Tiger Brands supports aggregators with input finance, offtake agreements and agrarian and technical support that is also extended to black smallholder farmers. The smallholder farmers in turn form part of the Smallholder Farmer Development Support Programme, a gateway to the aggregator model.
The agricultural commodity focus areas for the programme include small white beans, groundnuts, tomatoes, wheat, white maize, sorghum, and oats. Farming enterprises with experience in producing these commodities and meet the following requirement are eligible to apply for the agricultural programmes:
• 100% black-owned business• EME/QSE/Generic
• In possession of a valid BEE certificate and affidavit
• Minimum three-years agriculture experience with a network of farmers
• Logistics management experience
• Farm management experience
• Inputs procurement capability
• Quality assurance capability
• Access to fundraising
