Minbos Resources (ASX:MNB) has an ambition to end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment.
CEO Lindsay Reed once described to Mining.com.au the company’s Cabinda Phosphate Project as one that inherently brings positive social and environmental impacts, uniquely positioned to drive sustainable agricultural growth across Middle Africa.
Minbos has adopted the World Economic Forum ESG framework and has set up an impact measurement plan for each sustainability area which includes governance, anti-corruption practices, ethical behaviour, child labour, emissions, land use, ecological sensitivity, water consumption, diversity and inclusion, pay equality, and local tax payments.
“Good for Minbos, good for Angola.” These words from Reed encapsulate the Minbos Resources vision driving the company as it prompts efforts to catalyse Angola’s agricultural sector.
With a strategic focus on sustainable development and community empowerment, Minbos is helping to reshape Angola and its agriculture sector through its projects and robust partnerships.
It’s the company’s focus on the local and indigenous community in Angola that makes it a clear winner for the inaugural Mining.com.au Masters of Mining Indigenous Inclusion Award for 2024.
The award recognises either collaboration with Traditional Land Owners (or other indigenous community stakeholder organisations), or the implementation of initiatives to actively employ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) people or those indigenous to the country hosting an ASX-listed company’s flagship asset.
“Pequeno projecto, grande impacto — small project, big impact,” Reed previously told this news service about its Cabinda Phosphate Project in Angola.
Reed, who has more than 40 years of expertise in exploration and development across Australia and Africa, emphasises the need for investment in Africa to generate sustainable returns for local communities. Or, as he previously said: “Minbos has a project with low-capex and high-returns, having tailored its fertiliser business to grow and support the local agricultural economy.”
The World Bank Group says the Angolan Government has been prioritising the agricultural sector through promoting agribusiness, with the aim to reduce the reliance on external markets for food supply.
In 1970, Angola was a global agricultural powerhouse, being an exporter of sisal, sugarcane, banana, and cotton, the world’s fourth largest coffee producer, and self-sufficient in all food crops except wheat.
Due to ongoing civil war, economic challenges, infrastructure, and import dependency,tthe central African nation has no fertiliser factories. It is a two-speed country — a strong middle class built on oil and diamond wealth, and small-holder farmers that the Angolan President has been seeking to uplift.
The Cabinda Project has been asserted to help revolutionise Angola’s agricultural landscape, as well as reintroduce self-sufficiency in food production.
Minbos’ team has engaged with local communities. In particular, at the site of the Cabinda Phosphate mine, the company’s staff carefully and respectfully completed a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) with local small-holder farmers. The RAP engaged extensively with national, provincial, and municipal government ministries and departments, including the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, traditional leadership, provincial government, and municipal administrators.
The combination of its work to prepare the project for construction, in-country support, and work with local communities has got Minbos to the precipice of being middle-Africa’s first primary producer of phosphate fertiliser.
As Reed has previously told Mining.com.au: “You can’t just go to the farmers (in Angola) and say ‘grow more’ because they’re already growing enough to eat. There’s no point growing more if they can’t profit out of it”.
“You can’t just go to the farmers (in Angola) and say ‘grow more’ because they’re already growing enough to eat. There’s no point growing more if they can’t profit out of it”
“And to do that they need training and knowledge. They’ll need good quality seeds and they’ll need fertiliser and weed control strategies, things like that.”
To make fertiliser, you need phosphate. Essential for all living cells and especially agricultural productivity, phosphate is the key deficiency in Angolan soils; and it’s something that Minbos’ Angolan project has in spades.
It’s why Minbos has been able to secure financing deals to develop the project.
On 6 December, Minbos and Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI), Angola’s largest commercial bank, signed a final term sheet in relation to a US$12 million term loan to be provided by BAI to Soul Rock, a subsidiary of the company for the Cabinda Phosphate Fertiliser Project.
In August, the emerging phosphate producer locked in a US$10 million capital injection from Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which has allocated US$250 million to the agricultural sector, with the aim of generating economic growth in the next three to five years.
Agriculture is viewed as one of the most promising commercial sectors in Angola and has been one of the main focuses of foreign direct investment in the region.
The inaugural 2024 Mining.com.au Masters of Mining Awards are the newest national awards program to recognise and celebrate companies that contribute to the mining and minerals processing industry within Australia.
The awards recognise companies and individuals that excel in everything from exploration, to diversity and inclusion, innovation, leadership, job creation, and sector advocacy.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Minbos
