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Herald Reporter
Officials from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development have been in the United Kingdom where they are engaging the business community in the agricultural sector in pursuit of the engagement and re-engagement drive.
The thrust is to engage Zimbabweans in the diaspora, and to promote trade and exports so that the sector is considered strategic in terms of high employment opportunities since most production systems are labour intensive, hence the push to develop an enabling environment for youths’ participation at all levels of the agriculture value chain.
Speaking at the 2023 Zimbabwe UK Youth in Agri-entrepreneurship and trade business symposium held in the UK, chief programmes coordinator, Agricultural Youth Desk, Mr Nickros Kajengo, said it was important to continue, prolong and resume exporting Zimbabwe’s agricultural produce to Europe and beyond European borders.
He said youth’s participation was crucial to boost production.
Jamaica, Nigeria and India are also participating at the conference.
“Britain used to be a great importer of our horticultural produce, among other agricultural produce,” said Mr Kajengo. “We visited the international markets where we identified the major exporters of agricultural produce and we have realised that major exports are African countries such as Uganda, Egypt and South Africa.
“We have also discovered that there are some indigenous food products that exist naturally such as baobab fruit. They catch good money in international markets. The thrust was to engage young people so that they add value in Government’ call in the value chain.
“Young people have a passion for agriculture. We have a farmer in the UK who has 100 hectares of land and is doing very well there.”
As the Government strives to transform the agriculture sector to be more business driven, the involvement of young farmers will accelerate the rate of adoption of business practices in farming, said Mr Kajengo.
Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) chief executive officer Mr Clever Isaiah said there was need to connect young farmers in Zimbabwe with the international markets.
“Our main purpose to attend this programme is to identify potential markets for our horticultural products,” he said. “The UK remains one of the attractive export destinations for produce coming out of Zimbabwe.
“So far we have noticed that there is a huge appetite for Zimbabwean horticulture organic produce and that’s what we are going to promote.”
The five-day conference recognised the contributions and achievements of young farmers and encouraged them to contribute meaningfully to the agricultural fortunes.
The agricultural sector is one of the sectors expected to play a critical role in the country’s quest of attaining an upper middle income society by 2030.
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