Company ProfileContinental Ginnery Limited

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Continental Ginnery Limited (CGL) is a member of the Parrogate Group, an agricultural company with operations in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Parrogate Zambia is also part of the group – a sister company to CGL, and processes oilseed in Zambia. CGL is involved in cotton aggregation and processing. It also aggregates oilseed crops on behalf of Parrogate Zambia on a commission basis through its farmer network.

CGL established its operations in Zambia in 2007, entering the cotton value chain through the acquisition of assets in the southern part of the country. The Company has grown its operations in cotton and expanded its market share from about 9% when it started to over 30% in 2020, setting up ginning operations in Central and Eastern Provinces, and further acquiring Cargill’s ginning interests in Zambia in 2017. CGL has also grown and diversified into soya beans, maize, and sunflower which it sources directly from smallholder farmers.

Project Description

Through the ENTERPRISE Zambia Challenge Fund, CGL plans to; 

1. Address the decline in cotton production (-84% between 2012 and 2020) that has taken place in recent years due to competition from other commodity crops, notably soybean. 

CGL is currently only ginning at around 16% of its total capacity of 90,000MT per year, last year processing just 14,500MT, and as such has seen pressure on business profitability. The company believes that through the application of good agricultural practices (GAP), including crop rotation, significant productivity gains can be made in growing cotton, soybean and sunflower, and there will be less pressure on specific commodities.

1. Expand its services to 20,000 of its existing smallholder farmer suppliers as well as recruiting a further 5,000 in new areas of operation (Luapula, Western, and new parts of Central).

Marketing, impact on people and the environment;

CGL proposes to work with 25,000 smallholder farmers. 20,000 of these are already supplying CGL through its cotton out-grower scheme in the Central, Southern, and Eastern provinces. The company will roll out deeper engagement with these smallholder farmers, including more training, support to integrate other crops in rotation, increased digitization etc.

CGL aims to engage with these 25,000 smallholder farmers by creating 500 farmer groups, of which 100 will be women’s groups. Women’s groups will be trained in entrepreneurship, financial literacy, nutrition, communication management and leadership skills. Each of the 500 groups will have a lead farmer who is responsible for running demonstrations and will be directly supported by an extension officer.

CGL expects to hire 50 full-time staff to facilitate the scale-up of activities. It also anticipates creating 50 new part-time jobs and an estimated 310 casual/seasonal jobs through the project.