Agriterra Ltd on Wednesday said its half-year loss and cost of sales widened, while it enters the second half of its financial 2023 with too little grain for the next harvest.

The Mozambique-focused agricultural investment and sustainable development company said pretax loss in the six months that ended September 30 was $1.3 million, widening by 8.3% from $1.2 million a year earlier.

Although revenue narrowly crept up 2% to $5.0 million from $4.9 million, cost of sales increased by 11% to $3.9 million from $3.5 million.

It said it entered the second half of its financial 2023 with 7,444 tons total grain stock in silo, which it deemed insufficient for the firm’s next harvest. This was down 61% from 18,942 tons a year earlier.

Agriterra said the total grain stock would be rolled over continuously to fund maize requirements until April 2023. This means a further 5,000 tons will need to be purchased to meet the milling requirements until the next harvest.

‘The strategy is to rollover the working capital until we link to the next grain buying season. This will reduce finance cost for the group as well as stock holding expenses,’ said Chair Caroline Havers.

‘Grain remains the core group business and management will seek to add value by creating additional product lines...Additionally, for the financial 2023 period, we are working on a financing programme to rebuild the beef stocks and to improve our overall distribution of products.’

Havers added all of Agriterra’s divisions were striving to be self-sustaining at a low-capacity utilisation, before looking to expand into profitable operations as volumes increase.

Shares in Agriterra were flat at 5.22 pence each in London on Wednesday afternoon.

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