eBusiness Weekly
Enacy Mapakame
Business Writer
The Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU) recently launched a commercial entity, Globfarm Investments Private Limited, which is now operational, and is expected to transform agriculture into viable businesses across value chains within the next two to three years, an official has said.
Globfarm was launched in August this year as an independent entity aimed at strengthening the ZFU’s operational obligations in a bid to enhance and promote local farmers in the country.
The entity has rolled out three projects namely, Tillage, Haulage and Meat Market.
ZFU executive director Mr Paul Zakariya said since the launch of the entity, the union was already seeing positive outcomes with prospects bright to spread its projects across the country, in an effort to boost farmers’ earnings and grow smallholder producers into viable agriculture businesses.
“The company has already started operations in livestock, we have established a meat market in Harare and rolling out these platforms to other areas like Mutare, Masvingo, Gweru and we have a whole plan for Matabeleland South,” he said while presenting at the recently held Global Renaissance Investments (GRI) Smart Farming Indaba and Dinner held in Victoria Falls recently.
“As the company continues to grow and mobilise resources, we believe that in the next two the three years we are going to begin to see a shift in terms of the economic empowerment of our farmers and sound decision making from the farmers,” he said.
The formation of Globfarm has come at a time farmers have been experiencing a myriad of challenges ranging from high input costs, limited access to markets, lack of funding for expansion projects and erratic utilities supplies while climate-induced disasters have also added to the strain.
As such, some farmers have not realised their full potential despite the agriculture sector being the backbone of the economy with its output accounting for about 60 percent of raw materials required in manufacturing.
Mr Zakariya said with the new strategy the farmer organisation was pursuing, it would also transform ZFU from being just a lobby group to commercial and viable entities for its members across segments and value chains.
With Globfarm, he said, farmers were beginning to see more opportunities to pursue in the agriculture sector and across its value chains.
“Through this initiative, farmers are already seeing opportunities in going up the value chains and departing from just being primary producers only, but own the entire value chain.
“We want ZFU to be a catalyst of economic development, minding what goes into the pocket of the farmer,” he said.
Globfarm provides services to farmers based on viable business models. The tillage unit has farming implements carrying out services to farmers with the vision to expand the service to reach every member across the country so they also benefit from the affordable prices.
Mr Zakariya added it was imperative for farmers to work as a collective body and revisit the cooperatives business model, which helps small holder farmers reduce operating costs but boost their bottomline.
The cooperative model is being used and successful in India and Europe.
