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Elita Chikwati Senior Agriculture Reporter
Officials from the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) on Wednesday engaged their counterparts from South Africa’s National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) in Harare to exchange ideas on how to build capacity for smallholder farmers, improve market linkages and trade between the two countries.
The two organisations, which are also expected to later sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA), are also looking at increasing co-operation in equipping farmers with skills so their agricultural produce meet market requirements in terms of quality and volumes.
During the meeting, AMA chief executive, Mr Clever Isaya, said the authority was looking at ways of growing volumes of exports to South Africa and the value chains on demand so they can empower stakeholders.
“There are a number of areas of co-operation of interest especially on unlocking markets and capacity building.
“In Zimbabwe only commercial farmers are exporting. We need to capacitate smallholder farmers so they can also export, increase their earnings and improve their livelihoods.
“We want to help the smallholder farmers with the setting up of the requisite infrastructure. We can learn a lot from those already operating in South Africa,” he said.
AMA director for agribusiness, Mrs Junior Manduna, said the authority was looking at co-operating with the NAMC on agribusiness, research, agricultural trust and statutory measures.
“On business linkages, we are looking at smallholder farmers linkages with potential off takers for high value crops and livestock products. We are looking forward to co-hosting regional symposiums on market access or agri-preneurship,” she said.
NAMC senior economist, Dr Ndumiso Mazibuko, said their organisation which was funded by the state was responsible for advising the Minister and directly affected groups on all matters relating to marketing of agricultural products.
“Our objectives are to promote transformation in agriculture and agro-processing sectors, increase food security in South Africa, enhance competitiveness and entrepreneurial opportunities through technological innovations, infrastructure development and digitalisation.
“We also working on creating an effective farmer support and agro-processing incentives and enhance resilience to climate change and management of natural resources,” he said.
Dr Mazibuko said their organisation was also into research on smallholder market access, agro-food chains and trade research.
“Key outputs include advisory on trade policy developments, trade opportunities and international markets for agricultural products and advisory on smallholder farmers in the current structure agriculture value chains and inclusion models among others,” he said.
Dr Mazibuko said the NAMC has signed an MOA with Namibia and was doing some works with Australia to pomote beef production in Kwazulu Natal and the Eastern Cape provinces in South Africa.
“We also monitor inputs costs, and address the issue of agriculture competitiveness.
NAMC economist, Ms Nomatande Yeki, said the organisation was also looking at challenges being faced by smallholder farmers. We will be implementing master plan by April this year to promote research and development. We have a division that does research specifically for smallholder farmers.
“They look at challenges being faced by farmers.
“We do this for every commodity and we have developed a baseline on who is producing what and in what quantities. This helps us monitor the agri business division,” she said.
NAMC also collects levies from the agriculture industry and these are a voluntary initiative from different agricultural organisations in South Africa.
The money is used for training farmers in different aspects.
The money has also been used to set up feedlots where farmers can feed their cattle before they are taken for the abattoir or for export.
NAMC also has different publications on different issues including trade updates.
The publications also highlights farmers successes and experiences so they can inspire their fellows.
AMA is mandated with the overall regulation of the production, marketing and processing of agricultural products in Zimbabwe.
The authority regulates the participation in the production, buying or processing of any agricultural product by producers, buyers or processors or classes of producers, buyers or processors of any agricultural product upon such terms and conditions, including, as appropriate the fixing of quotas, as may be prescribed.
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