AGCO Corp., Duluth, Ga., opened a new office in Casablanca, Morocco, to serve as the company’s regional sales office for West and North Africa.

“The continent is home to 60% of the world’s arable land, and is thus expected to play a major role in future, global food security,” says Nuradin Osman, vice president and general manager Africa. “Opening the Casablanca office not only builds on our presence at a sub-regional level, but also underlines AGCO’s vision and strategy for advancing African agricultural prosperity.”

The region presents an opportunity for the expansion of Agri Parks, an AGCO initiative to develop integrated agricultural centers in Africa to support the transfer of farming techniques and provide training, advice, equipment, crop storage, processing and logistics to the farming community.

“The Casablanca office will also serve as the headquarters for Agri-Parks, which represents a significantly fresh approach for agricultural production and rural transformation. The innovation of Agri-Parks is in developing infrastructure and community through agricultural mechanization,” adds Osman.

Alongside food security, a key goal of Agri-Park is to help create high-value jobs and encourage the initialization of satellite industries, including agricultural machinery workshops and farm supplies’ outlets. The objective is to focus on the establishment of an integrated value chain from farm to fork instead of selling low-value crops.

“The opening of the Casablanca office demonstrates AGCO’s strong commitment to ‘Run Africa from Africa,’” adds Osman.