Michael Ogg is currently based in Eswatini where he has lived since moving there to work on a large sugarcane development project 23 years ago. He has a BSc Agric (Horticulture) and an MBA. He has over 30 years of professional experience in the development of farmers’ organisations as part of large agricultural infrastructure projects in many different African countries.
Michael has developed a good understanding of the constraints and opportunities that exist in the agricultural sector in these countries and has a particular knowledge of the processes required in the commercialisation of smallholder farmers. While he has worked on a number of different crops and value chains, he has specialised in developing solutions for different sugar industries around the world.
Many of these projects have focused on the building of human and organisational capacity of smallholder sugar cane farmers to sustainably partner with sugar mills to ensure a robust and sustainable partenerial relationship between growers and sugar agribusiness companies.
In many instances these projects have resulted in the design and strategy development of a number of different outgrower schemes along with the required farmer training and institutional support needed to commercially sustain these schemes. Michael has a long working relationship with Bonsucro going back some 10 years and won the Bonsucro aspire award as part of the RMI development team in 2016.