admin
Business Reporter
A summit to discuss ways to enhance food security and nutrition is set for Bulawayo on 30 and 31 January. The summit will discuss how the government and the private sector can work together to achieve and implement policies outlined in the economic blue print ZimAsset concerning food security and nutrition.
In an interview, the director for Aline Hope Business Solutions and Training Services, who are the organisers of the summit, Thandiwe Mlobane, said they will focus on production, marketing and consumers to come up with ways of improving the sector.
“The main focus of the summit is on productivity, marketing and consumers to come up with ways and relevant solutions to enhance food security,” she said.
Mlobane said they will come with strategies of how the government and the private sector can work together to implement the policies that aim at enhancing food security in the country.
“We want the policymakers to meet the private sector and discuss how the policy can be implemented because we do not want a situation where we have the policy but it is not implemented and at the end of the day nothing is achieved,” she said.
Mlobane said many farmers had resorted to subsistence farming instead of commercial farming because there were no readily available markets where they could sell their produce.
The summit will provide a platform for farmers, distributors, marketers and buyers to meet and discuss ways on how farmers can be supported and be guaranteed of a ready market.
“We want farmers to meet with distributors, marketers and buyers who will help them identify readily available markets for their produce which will see an increase in productivity,” said Mlobane.
She said from the summit they were going to establish an investment vehicle which would cater for people in the Diaspora and locals who wanted to invest in agriculture.
“We are going to establish an investment vehicle which will cater for Zimbabweans in the diaspora and locals who want to invest in agriculture and enhance food security in the country at the same time creating employment in the agribusiness sector,” she said.
She said they are expecting more than 300 delegates to attend from all the sectors, financial institutions, farmer organisations, government ministers, private sector and players in the agribusiness sector.
Mlobane said their main aim and focus was to achieve Millennium Development Goal number one to “Eliminate extreme hunger and poverty by year 2015” and the ZimAsset mandate of achieving food security in the country.
Online Reporter