Louis Dreyfus Company opens a new office in Nairobi 

KENYA- Global merchant and agricultural goods processor Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) has announced opening a new office in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. 

LDC is a key product importer into East Africa, including grains and palm oil for millers and refineries through the ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, as well as an exporter of locally-grown Arabica coffee, considered to be among the world’s top premium coffees.

Having been active in Kenya since the 1950s, LDC is one of the country’s leading wheat, coffee, and vegetable oils merchandisers, with a growing footprint across East Africa. 

As a major agricultural player with an extensive global presence, the company leverages its diverse and widespread geographical footprint to bring locally grown products to international markets and to supply Kenya with international products.

In the country, the company has two main facilities, one in Mombasa, where it operates a grains and oilseeds storage facility with a storage capacity of 42,000 MT. 

The other one is in Nairobi, where it runs a coffee storage and processing facility with an annual processing capacity of over 6,000 MT and a storage capacity of 3,100 MT. 

This new office in Nairobi will be instrumental in helping the company expand its operations in the country and reinforce its position as a major commodities trader in the East African region. 

Empowering farming communities

As LDC is looking to advance its operations in Kenya, the grain elevator has different initiatives in place to empower the communities around which it operates. 

One of these initiatives revolves around empowering maize smallholders in Kenya’s Bungoma County, which has been experiencing low productivity mainly because of poor crop production practices that have also contributed to degraded soil through the overuse of agrochemicals. 

In 2022, in collaboration with Solidaridad, LDC launched a four-year project to increase food security and climate resilience in the region by increasing sustainable maize production by 50%, market access for smallholders through efficient aggregation, and increasing farmers’ ability to manage climate variability effects.

Another project, dubbed promoting agroecology, is implemented in partnership with agri-agency Fert and the Cereals Growers Association to support farmers in the region by introducing agroecology production methods to increase their yields and resilience to climate change and by creating or improving collective savings and loan systems for farmer groups.

Another project is geared towards supporting agricultural aggregators, where LDC is supporting an ongoing project to establish a more stable market for farmers, working with Root Capital. 

In this project, 14 agricultural businesses, including aggregators and grains processors, were identified and are currently being supported by professional advisors as part of the project’s initial focus on capacity building to accelerate credit readiness. 

Through this support, aggregators will offer tens of thousands of smallholder farmers more stable market access and more secure livelihoods.