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The agribusiness ecosystem in Africa is shaped by a myriad of complex and interwoven issues. Navigating these complexities and growing sustainable businesses with high social impact value is usually the outcome of a sustained effort to succeed. The knowledge of the African business context, the ability to identify opportunities and the willingness to learn from experience constitute a veritable means for any entrepreneur seeking to scale up an Indigenous agribusiness in Africa. This chapter presents JR Farms as a case study of one of such Indigenous agribusinesses that has successfully expanded within the African market. The case examines the trajectory of JR Farms from its beginnings in Nigeria to its definitive establishment in Rwanda and Zambia. Through the lens of a qualitative case study approach, we write a narrative of the vision, strategies and decisions that transformed JR Farms into a multi-million-dollar development partner for the communities where it operates. Finally, we reflect on these experiences in making recommendations for growing agribusinesses in Africa.

Agriculture and related businesses in Ghana for the past decades have been the preserve for the smallholder, aged and illiterate farmers. Meanwhile, hundreds of students graduate in Agricultural Sciences from the universities over the years. This study seeks to investigate potential determinants of the entrepreneurial spirit of agricultural students to do self-employed businesses in the agricultural sector. A survey of 165 undergraduate students of agriculture in the University of Cape Coast, Ghana was undertaken to examine factors that influence their decision to enter into agribusiness as a self-employment venture after graduation. The results show that the majority of the students were males (87%) and approximately, 67% were willing to enter into agribusiness after school. The factors that students perceived to be hindrance to entering into agribusiness was the market competition of agro-products with imported products, unstable prices of agro-products, absence of insurance policy for agribusiness and unfavourable land tenure arrangement in Ghana. Correlation analysis showed negative and significant relationship between students’ willingness to enter agribusiness as a self-employment venture and the following personal characteristics: (1) level of education of mother, (2) level of education of guardian other than parents, (3) students who live in farming communities and (4) students who undertake farming activities at home. There were also positive and significant relationships between students’ willingness to enter agribusiness and the following: (1) availability of market for agro-products, (2) accessibility of market for agro-products and (3) accessibility of transportation facilities for agribusiness. Regression analysis showed that (1) level of education of mother, (2) students living in farming communities, (3) accessibility of transportation facilities for agribusiness and (4) accessibility of market for agro-product were the factors that best predict undergraduate agricultural students’ willingness to enter into agribusiness as a self-employment venture after graduation. To motivate students to take agribusiness as self-employment after graduation, the study suggests the development of comprehensive and sustainable long-term policy to inspire and attract the youth into agribusiness; creation of conducive environment to minimise risk and constraints associated with agribusiness in Ghana.

Drawing on social capital theory, this study aims to explore the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on organizational resilience. The research investigates the mediating role of relationship quality in the association of CSR with organizational resilience, and the moderating role of data-driven culture in the association between CSR and relationship quality.

Data were collected from Chinese agricultural firms with a sample of 241 senior or middle executives and structural equation modeling was used to test the research model and hypotheses.

The results indicate that CSR positively affects the relationship quality between agribusinesses and farmers, which in turn positively affects both proactive resilience and reactive resilience. Relationship quality has a partial mediating role in the association of CSR with proactive resilience and reactive resilience. Data-driven culture has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between CSR and relationship quality.

By arguing for CSR toward organizational resilience and analyzing its underlying mechanism, this study enriches the literature on CSR and organizational resilience and expands the existing knowledge on the roles of relationship quality and data-driven culture. This study also provides practical insights into how to improve organizational resilience.

This study aims to examine the value orientations of New Zealand agribusiness investors and how these orientations influence their reactions to the environmental and social implications of agribusinesses.

In the context of the New Zealand agricultural sector, the views of investors as published in print and broadcast media between 2018 and 2022 are gathered. The study uses qualitative content analysis to analyse the data. The study is based on the value-belief-norm theory.

The study reveals that New Zealand agribusiness investors express concern about the environmental (biospheric) and social (altruistic) impacts of the agribusiness sector, prompting calls for greater transparency, climate adaptation and ethical investment options. Additionally, they actively support local businesses to benefit their communities and preserve cultural heritage. Despite these biospheric and altruistic tendencies, investors also prioritise financial and non-financial interests (egoistic). This highlights a nuanced perspective guiding their investment choices – a balance between self-interest and contributing to the greater good. This signals a shift towards socially and environmentally responsible investment practices driven by multifaceted values.

The findings of this study highlight the role of non-pecuniary motives, like values, in determining the relevance of environmental and social information.

The study’s findings offer insight to agribusinesses on how investors’ value orientations shape their investment decisions. This understanding can guide businesses in framing a reporting strategy that enhances the likelihood of investors perceiving reporting as relevant and persuasive, thereby attracting more investments. In turn, this tailored reporting approach assists investors in making well-informed decisions in assessing the environmental and societal risks of agribusinesses.

The study offers a framework explaining how agribusinesses can increase the likelihood of investors finding firms reporting relevant and persuasive, leading to increased investments in environmentally and socially sustainable practices.

With reference to the global financial crisis and lessons learned, advocacy for distributing suitable financial products by financial intermediaries remain key if consumers, especially the illiterate in underdeveloped financial markets, are to be absorbed into the formal financial system. Financial intermediaries such as microfinance banks should provide suitable financial products, with full disclosure of information and customer protection relating to distribution of all financial products within the financial market to prevent financial vulnerability. The main purpose of this study is to establish the mediating role of financial product suitability in the relationship between access to microfinance products and survival of women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda.

SmartPLS with bootstrap based on 5,000 samples was used to test for the mediating role of financial product suitability in the relationship between access to microfinance products and survival of women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda.

The results revealed that financial product suitability improves access to microfinance products by 29 percentage points to promote survival of women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda. In reality, delivering suitable financial products that suit the economic condition of poor women micro-agribusiness borrowers, can allow them to use these products to generate income to meet timely repayment obligations and business demands.

The current study selected samples from only women micro-agribusinesses operating in rural Uganda, with a specific focus on the northern region. Thus, studies involving samples selected from other rural developing countries may be necessary in future. Additionally, while the findings are significant, the data were collected from only women microenterprises who are clients of microfinance banks. Future studies focusing on women microenterprises who are clients of other financial institutions may offer insightful comparative data.

The findings from this study offer strategies for managers of microfinance banks to invent and design financial products that suit the economic status and condition of different microcredit clients, especially the women micro-agribusinesses. This can help them to solve the problem of defaults in loan repayment and delinquency common while lending to the rural poor. In fact, microfinance banks should adopt a customized loan pricing model that can promote the operational sustainability and commercial viability of women micro-agribusinesses in the current situation of mission adrift.

The current study uses the suitability rule and economic theory to elucidate the importance of microfinance product suitability to increase microfinance inclusion of women micro-agribusinesses in rural areas in developing countries. The novelty in this paper is in combining the suitability rule and economic theory with microfinance theory to promote access to microcredit by the women micro-agribusinesses in rural Uganda under the situation of mission adrift. This is limited in the existing microfinance literature and theory, especially in developing countries like Uganda.

The literature has suggested that capabilities have been used to generate performance and competitive advantage, especially in industries with higher technological dynamism in developed economies. However, knowledge of the topic still needs to be systematically analyzed in agribusiness. Thus, this article fills this gap because it systematically reviews the literature on agribusiness capabilities and performance, classifies and codifies its characteristics, and determines what is known and what gaps there are in the knowledge regarding these subjects.

A systematic literature review of agribusiness capabilities and performance was conducted based on Cronin et al. (2008) protocol. Thirty-six articles from the WoS and Scopus databases were identified and analyzed.

This article identified, classified and coded 12 capabilities agribusiness firms employ to improve performance. This article reveals several gaps regarding capabilities and performance in agribusiness, especially emphasizing commodity products, in addition to studies with fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, meat, agricultural inputs and biofuels. It was also found that higher-order capabilities are more strongly related to performance than lower-order capabilities, that the performance benefits conferred by capabilities are more evident in developing economies, and that the relationship between capabilities and performance is more robust in agribusinesses with lower levels of technological dynamism.

This paper contributes to the debate about agribusiness capabilities and performance in three aspects. First, it systematically reviews the literature on these subjects; second, it classifies and codifies agribusiness capabilities and performance characteristics; third, it provides a research agenda on the theme.

This paper aims to analyse the effect of mandatory corporate social responsibility expenditure (CSRE) on the performance of food and agribusiness firms in India.

This study is based on the firm-level data collected from the Prowess database of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy in the year 2019. The data on key characteristics, business performance and CSRE has been compiled from 362 food and agribusiness firms. The descriptive statistics, t-test for equality of means and Spearman correlation analysis have been undertaken to understand the relationship between mandatory CSRE and firm performance across food and agribusiness sectors.

Out of 362 food and agribusiness firms, 52.2% have reported expenditure in the implementation of social initiatives under their corporate social responsibility. The results show a significant difference in the firm’s characteristics vis-à-vis with and without CSRE. Further, the findings highlight a positive and significant correlation and causal impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on return on sales, return on assets and profit after tax.

The study provides insights for implementing strategic CSR in food and agribusiness firms and gives an adequate justification for incurring CSRE.

This paper increases the understanding of CSR in the food and agribusiness sector. Besides, provisioning mandatory CSR seems to be a beneficial proposition for enhancing a firm’s performance.

This study aims to focus on assessing the status of agribusiness enterprises in Nigeria. The specific goals were to ascertain the level of performance of different categories of agribusiness enterprises, and determine the institutional and firm-level characteristics that influence agribusiness performance.

The study is based on secondary data. These data were sourced from the World Bank business enterprise survey. The World Bank Enterprise survey employed a purposive sampling technique to select major staple agribusiness categories in Nigeria. The categories selected were those included in the World Bank's categorization of agribusiness enterprises. These categories include tobacco, food, textiles, leather, garments, paper industries and wood. The individual firms included in the survey were randomly selected from the selected agribusiness categories. In total, 721 agribusiness firms were selected. Data were analyzed with multiple linear regression at a 5% probability level.

The result of the analysis showed that small-scale agribusiness enterprises have the best performance based on an average of the five performance indicators considered in this study. The determinants of agribusiness performance showed that the credit constraint, size of enterprise, bureaucracy and corruption negatively and significantly affected the performance of agribusiness enterprises in the country, while the gender and educational status of the top manager were positively significant.

The findings imply that small agribusinesses are instrumental in the development of the agribusiness sector and by extension the economy of the nation.

This study enhances the understanding of how best to deliver improved system-level performance policy and wealth creation, especially within the agribusiness subsector.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of agribusiness firms in India, China and Pakistan, as well as the challenges they face in doing business.

This study is based on the World Bank’s Enterprises Survey (WBES) data. The survey was carried out through a questionnaire survey from the owner and top managers of 716, 247 and 174 agribusiness from India, Pakistan and China, respectively. This enterprises survey has comprised the information regarding the wide range of firms’ characteristics and 16 parameters of business obstacles. Simple statistical tools such as chi-square and analysis of variance have been used to analyze the data.

Chi-square test shows the statistically significance difference in firms’ characteristics across agribusiness firms of India, China and Pakistan. Chinese firms are better in terms of having an international quality certification, own websites and getting credit. In Pakistan, access to land for agribusiness is an obstacle while for India and China, it is easy to acquire land for agribusiness purposes. In Pakistan, tax rate and political stability is a moderate obstacle while in India and China, it is a minor obstacle in agribusiness. Labor regulation does not perceive any considerable obstacle in doing business in India and Pakistan.

This study provides an understanding of differences in the agribusiness environment in emerging economies such as India, Pakistan and China based on WBES data. This study can be helpful for agribusiness managers and government policymakers for promoting agriculture-based entrepreneurship.

It is the first attempt to compare the profile of agribusiness firms in growing Asian economies such as India, Pakistan and China, as well as perceived business hurdles, using a comprehensive enterprises survey data of World Bank.

Agribusinesses represent a fundamental link in connecting farmers with retailers and consumers, yet little research has been done to examine the historical financial performance of these food processing firms. This paper aims to address this issue.

The authors' research examines how publicly‐traded agribusinesses perform financially compared to all firms over the period from 1961 to 2011. The authors utilize several indicators of company success, including financial ratios and balance sheet/income statement items, to compare agribusiness firms to all firms in the market. The authors perform the analysis over time and also for companies with low, median, and high performance. They also perform Du Pont analysis to compare return on equity components between agribusinesses and all firms.

The authors find that agribusinesses outperform at the median the sample of all firms in terms of financial ratios related to profitability, liquidity, and market ratios, but have slightly lower liquidity and debt ratios. The Du Pont analysis shows that the higher return on equity for agribusinesses is mostly due to higher asset turnover ratios, indicating higher operating efficiency of agribusinesses. The strong financial performance of food manufacturing agribusinesses makes them valuable companies in an investment portfolio.

This study provides a basic overview of financial ratios used to examine the financial performance of publicly‐traded agribusinesses. The authors' findings show that agribusinesses outperform all firms in terms of key financial indicators.