DECA Limitada, based in Chimoio in the Manica Province of Mozambique, was founded in 2005 to treat and process maize.

DECA purchases maize directly from thousands of local smallholder farmers through an established buying network, whereby Agriterra provides and installs the necessary infrastructure at specific buying points across the Chimoio region.

Local farmers bring their produce to these designated points, or to the DECA site, and are paid cash directly by DECA, thereby supporting economic activity in the relevant rural areas.

Once the maize is purchased it is transported back to DECA’s purpose-built storage and processing facility in Chimoio where it is dried, fumigated, prepared and processed into maize flour, a key staple food in the region and country as a whole. Maize flour, also known as mealie meal, is used extensively in African cuisine to make various pancakes, flatbreads and porridges and bran/hominy chop products, (effectively the waste product of the processing process) used throughout the region as livestock feed. After processing, the maize flour is packaged and transported to appropriate venues for onward sale under the DECA brand.

DECA is cash generative, has a strong brand, a loyal customer base and currently provides a market outlet for some 250,000 farmers. DECA’s operations, involving the enfranchising of locals rather than major land acquisitions, have received strong support from local and national governments since inception, with the former President of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza, opening the facility in 2005. The grain processed by DECA sustains thousands of people in the local province and DECA’s products are also sold to the UN World Food Programme.