Michael Ogg

Regional Manager at Bonsucro

Speaker

Michael Ogg is currently based in Eswatini where he has lived ever since moving there, to work on a large sugarcane development project 25 years ago. He is currently the regional manager for Bonsucro in Africa, Middle East and Australia. He has a BSc Agric (Horticulture) and an MBA. He has over 35 years of professional experience in the development of farmers’ organizations 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 commercialization of smallholder farmers. While he has worked on a number of different crops and value chains, he has specialized in developing solutions for different sugar industries around the world. Many of these projects have focussed on the building of human and organizational capacity of smallholder sugarcane farmers to sustainably partner with sugar mills to ensure a robust and partnerial 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.