When the money ran out, we became exporters!

When the money ran out, we became exporters. One of the hardest realities of operating in Sub-Saharan Africa is when hard currency simply dries up. You’re importing, selling in local currency, and suddenly you can no longer pay your suppliers or your parent company. The business stalls. This is exactly what happened to us in Malawi. Instead of waiting for the central bank to release more forex, we reversed the entire model. We turned our import distribution network into an export platform — using the same farmers who bought our inputs to now supply us with crops we could sell for USD. We built a cleaning and packaging facility, aligned production with international demand, and created a closed-loop hard currency system that kept the operation alive and growing. What started as a survival strategy became a powerful business insight: in forex-constrained markets, your distribution network isn’t just a cost centre — it can be a strategic asset in both directions. The lesson? When conventional solutions stop working, the best move is often to stop thinking like an importer and start thinking like a trader. António José Brizida Miranda (Antonio Miranda) General Manager & Country Director | Turnarounds & Growth | Multi-Country Africa Ex-Webcor • Wilmar • Cargill • Ma’aden

5/5/20261 min read

There is a problem that most executives running import-dependent operations in Sub-Saharan Africa will recognise immediately: the hard currency dries up.

You are importing. You are selling in local currency. The exchange rate moves against you. At some point, you can no longer settle with your suppliers or your parent company. The business stalls.

I faced this in Malawi — one of the most foreign-exchange-constrained markets on the continent. We had built a significant distribution network for agricultural inputs.

Then the hard currency stopped flowing, and with it, our ability to import.

The conventional response is to wait, negotiate, and hope the central bank releases more forex.

We did not wait. The insight was simple: our customers were also producers. The farmers buying inputs from us were growing crops. Crops that international buyers wanted. Crops that could be sold for USD. So we reversed the relationship. We approached our farmer clients with a new proposition, supply us with your output, and we will offer you additional value in return.

We guided what they produced, aligning it with what we could move internationally.

We built a cleaning and packaging facility. And we began exporting.

The USD generated from those exports offset what we owed on the import side. We had, in effect, created a closed-loop hard currency system, using the same network for both directions of trade.

What this required: Trust built through years of being present in the market, not parachuting in.

Deep knowledge of local production realities, not spreadsheet assumptions.

And the willingness to see the distribution network not as a cost centre, but as a strategic asset in both directions.

This model is not unique to Malawi. The same logic applies wherever import-dependent operations face structural forex constraints, which, in frontier Africa, is most markets most of the time.

The question is whether the people running those operations are close enough to the ground to see it.

António jose Brizida Miranda has spent 15 years building and operating agro-commodity platforms across Sub-Saharan Africa.

When the money ran out, we became exporters!

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Antonio Brizida Miranda