Bolivia to invest $40m in agriculture

The Bolivian government is seeking to make the country self sustainable in food production and stop all food imports by 2020.

The Bolivian government, where is aiming for no food imports by 2020, is investing $40 million in local food production, according to the Public Institute for Food Sovereignty (Ipdsa) .

Ipdsa said the move was aimed at securing the nation’s food sovereignty, and would focus on enabling small- and medium-sized farms to buy technological equipment and seed provisions, as well as helping fish farmers.

Last year, the agriculture investment management arm of Swiss family office Sherpa Asset Management closed on around $40 million worth of Latin American agri investment projects with a twenty-deal pipeline that extended to Bolivia, Agri Investor reported. Danishknowhow, an independent Danish agribusiness consultancy and start-up firm also has a dairy investment in the country.

The institute also announced last week that Bolivian food production in 2015 grew by 25 percent compared with 2014. Bolivia’s top food imports in 2011 were homogenised food preparations, wheat flower and sugar, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.