After we had spoken with Shon Adams for less than ten minutes we discerned that his interest in the agro- processing sector extended way beyond his own entrepreneurial pursuits as Managing Director of Fresh Press Enterprises, a Granville Park, Beterverwagting, fruit juice factory. The company, he says, is making a mark, the current slowdown in commerce across the wider economy notwithstanding.
But that, from Shon’s perspective, gives no cause for doom and gloom. Despite the national preoccupation with oil and gas, he appears determined that the agro-processing sector will ‘lead the charge’ in the direction of ensuring that the country’s agriculture sector does not get left behind and he wants the fruit juices sub-sector to be in the forefront of that charge.
When you ask him about the constraints that inhibit the growth of the agro-processing sector, there is no hint of equivocation in his response. First, he zeroes in on what he believes is the role of commercial banks in inhibiting the growth of the sector. The agro-processing sector, he says, is populated in the main by large numbers of still modest but growing business ventures and the inherently risk-averse nature of the country’s commercial banks runs the risk of stifling their growth. Afterwards, he talks about the limited efforts of the state, over many years, to support the creation of adequate physical infrastructure for the realisation of a robust agro-processing sector.
