Arabian Countries: Business + Jobs

Arabian Countries: Business + Jobs

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  • Oliver Langert
    Oliver Langert    Premium Member   Group moderator
    The company name is only visible to registered members.
    Rift Valley Garden frui and vegetable - looking for investor
    Rift Valley Garden looking for investor with high ethic standarts


    Rift Valley Garden

    Rift Valley Garden is a new enterprise producing fresh Fruit and Vegetable in East-Africa for the close by markets of the Middle East Region. Rift Valley Garden is commercial profit driven and orientated by being social responsible and pure sustainable. We aim to become a major producer and exporter of fresh Fruit and Vegetable from Africa to consumers of the Arabic Countries in the Middle East Region. Our production and operation will be highly reliable and of the highest quality standards using best agricultural practice on our farms.
    The ideal growing conditions and reliable climate, water supply, combined with low cost of production and the perfect geographic position to reach the market will give Fruit and Vegetable from Ethiopia a strong competitive advantage.
    Rift Valley Garden has set the highest possible standard in the way we work. Our operating principles lay out our full commitment to the principles of sustainable development. In practice this means delivering quality products to our customers, securing attractive returns to our investors and maximizing the positive social and environmental impacts in the location where we work through a direct join of the local community in our company.
    We believe that business development and participation to a global market is the key of Africans development and poverty reductions.

    Aid by Trade

    A focus on Africa

    Various parts of Africa offer excellent conditions for growing Fruit and Vegetable. However unlike Latin America and Asia, Africa as a continent has not been able to benefit from the strong global growth in demand of Fruit and Vegetable that has taken place over the last 10 years. There are many reasons for this but historic lack infrastructure, the somewhat unwarranted negative perception of Africa and the political and economic uncertainty have all played their parts in the preventing areas of Africa from benefiting from there international developments.
    There are, however significant signs of changes across Africa. More and more countries have a good level of political and economic stability while transparency in the private sector is also increasing. In many countries, this has significantly reduced the risk to foreign investment.
    Whilst the transition to modern market economies is unlikely to be free of problems and conflicts, there are sufficient countries now that have taken irreversible decisions to move towards a fully democratic process and to embrace the international norms of the rule of law and the protection of property. They also offer attractive tax regimes and good import and export arrangements, facilitating the investment of foreign capital. Rift Valley Garden intends to focus its business in these countries and has selected for its first project Ethiopia.
    We bring a depth of experience of on-the-ground project development and operational experience in Africa and ability to select the right projects in the right countries and to execute them correctly with success for all stake holders.
    Beside the improving investment climate and the Rift Valley Garden team´s ability to deliver in Africa the key motivations for establishing our business in Africa are the excellent growing conditions for Fruit and vegetable combined with good access to the key, and currently under-utilized resources required for our business such as labor, land and water. This leads to relatively lower cost of operations when compared with other existing and potential production locations. Finally this is combined with an attractive location in relation to our target markets of the Middle East Region, creating a highly completive production base.

    Ethiopia
    Ethiopia is situated in the Horn of Africa (East-Africa) and is land locked. It is bounded in the east by Somalia (Somalia Land, Punt Land and Somalia) and Djibouti with its famous and important port. In the south Kenya and in the north Eritrea and bordering Sudan in the West (Sudan and the new South-Sudan). Ethiopia has a population of 78.2 Million people, resulting in 68 inhabitants per square kilometer.
    Ethiopia has best geographic location to become a leading supplier for the Arabic Countries in the Middle East for food and agriculture products, due to his climate and water sources.

    The market for fresh Fruit and Vegetable in the Middle East
    The last 10 years have seen a strong growth in the global market for fresh fruit and vegetable. This strong growth is forecasted to continue for the medium to long term. General economic development in East Europe, Asia and the Middle East, as well as an increase concern for healthier lifestyles and the general growing demand for food due to population growth are the bases for the growth of the global market. Producing food is a secure and stable business with a never ending demand!
    The Middle East is mainly the United Arabic Emirates (UAE) and The Kingdom Saudi Arabia who import fruits and vegetable. The UAE also re-export a lot of products, as well Saudi Arabia by the port of Jeddah and the located vegetable and fruit centre to other countries of the Middle East Region.
    The Middle East region has limited growing capacities, due to climate, mainly leak of water and hot seasons. By this the region is depending on imports and global crises are regular causing shortage of supply, dramatic increase of prices and a very stable and relatively high minimum prices. Just in the Egypt crises the influence could be easily observed at the Jeddah F&V market. Additionally, Ethiopia is located in a proximate location to the Middle East, one of the fastest growing markets.
    (MENAFN Arab News February 2011) Egyptian protest in its second week has triggered a severe price on vegetable and fruits coming from that country to Saudi Arabian Market… prices have almost doubled.)

    The first project in Ethiopia – Corro Degaga Fruit and Vegetable Farm
    The RVG team has reviewed several potential locations for Fruit and Vegetable (F&V) production in Ethiopia and selected out of this Corro Degage, due to climate, soil, water, infrastructure and geographic position.
    Corro Degaga is located in Oromea Region of Ethiopia, some 150 km to the south of Addis Abeba, in the Rift Valley next to the Awash River. The location belongs to the Kebele (village) Corro Degaga and the Woroda (county) of Derra. The next large town is Nazareth (Adama) the capital of the Oromo Region.
    The community is by today depending on food aid and will receive a large change by the RVG project, becoming self dependent.
    The RVG project is bringing three shareholders together by the key contribution for the new enterprise and creating a new and innovative business model on the African continent.

    Local community by the asset land and some infrastructure with a value of estimated 155.000 €
    The founder team by contribution in kind – idea and business model, management know how and work
    The investor group by 500.000 € capital

    Our targets are
     Create over 420 new jobs in our company by 2015
     Reach a annually production of 11.000 tones of fresh Fruit and Vegetable by 2016
     Reach a net profit (after tax) of 1.200.000 € in 2016
     Reach a operating profit (EBITDA) of over 2.000.000€ in 2016
     Invest (CAPEX) a total of 2.100.000€ in the total time until 2016


    Sustainable development
    Rift Valley Garden aims to formally include the local community as partners through offering participation in the project in the form of becoming a directly equity partner in the business with the asset land. This gives the community a direct stake in the business including a share profits and an asset that can be leveraged for further social and economic developments in the community. Rift Valley Garden will follow Global GAP and Fair Trade labeling standards in all his operation.

    Strategy for growth
    The first project in Ethiopia, the Rift Valley Garden Corro Degaga Farm, is the key foundation block for further growth in Ethiopia and beyond. The key objective of this project is to become recognized by our customers as a reliable supplier of high quality Fruit and Vegetable. Our strategy is to identify the optimum intersection between vegetable and fruit production that have significant value and market growth potential and production location that have best blend of the needed growing conditions ( soil, climate and water), labor and land availability, as well fiscal and political stability. We aim to demonstrate that our selected business model of local community participation is the model of choice and can deliver to all stake holders.

    The strategic growth efforts are as follows:
     Increase production on the own farm by best practice
     Increase production through out growers
     Increase production by new growing locations
     Increase product range by new growing location
     Follow and develop strictly our brand philosophy
     Replicate the RVG model on a second production side and with new products of F&V by 2017

    Our Team
    Rift Valley garden management team comprises experienced agriculture and business development professionals. Collectively the team has worked for over 30 years in set up and management of horticultural enterprises, including tropical fruit and vegetable. We have in addition engaged local and international advisors to support our business. The team has already spearheads new developments in countries where there is frequently a lack of experiences of establishing such large scale operations. The team combines local and expatriate managers, with long working experiences in the region and is in deep knowledge of the local culture.

    Conclusion remarks
    Rift Valley Garden has developed comprehensive business model, execution and operational plan to transform existing and unutilized land into a state of the art farm for commercial production of Fruit and Vegetable for the growing demand in the Middle East region.The reasons why you may decided to develop a relationship with Rift Valley Garden are:

     Robust profitable business: we have identified a growing, under-served market and a location that is ideal for serving that market. We have developed a robust business and financial model which demonstrate attractive returns and deliver them quickly due to the acquisition of ideal farm location and its effective transformation.

     New commercial crops: the project will commercialize at large scale new crops for Ethiopia.
     In country add value: the project includes the total post harvest and supply chain, as ready to market, branding, fair trade labeling, this will add significant value to the project inside Ethiopia.
     Foreign direct investment: the project involves foreign direct investment for capital requirement and construction activities.
     Export revenues: the Fruit and Vegetable will be partly exported to Europe and the Middle East bringing a considerable revenue stream for the country and helping the balance of trade. Export is a key focus area for the Ethiopian government.
     Fair Trade operation: all of our production and our relationship with out growers will be developed under Fair Trade standards.
     Community participation: in addition to operating under fair Trade principles, RVG is giving a share to the local community, to become part-owners of the business allowing them to directly share in future profits.
     Sustainable development: growing F&V is labor intensive and therefore the project will also bring a high level of employment and income potential to the rural community.
     Skills transfer and capacity building: we will build the management and technical capacity of local staff.
     Technology transfer: we will implement new technologies on plantation (irrigation) and in the post harvest facility.
     Genuine sustainable development: the project will generate significant value economically, socially and environmentally and be a benchmark for how foreign direct investment delivered in developing countries.
     Transparent investment: RVG has a strong policy of transparence partner relationship. All investors can visit the project location,



    Contact us
    Oliver Langert
    mail us at o.langert@gmail.com
    A full business plan with 6 years business calculation of monthly breakdowns can be submitted any time if of interest and signing a non disclosure agreement (NdA)
    • 16 Nov 2011, 1:58 pm