Word From The Market
Tina Nleya
Zimbabwe assumed the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) chairmanship for the 2026-2027 term a fortnight ago.
The chairmanship places regional trade firmly in the spotlight. President Mnangagwa took over as chairman of the trading bloc during the COMESA Heads of State and Government Summit in Mt Hampden on October 22. For agriculture, this moment invites a practical question: are our products ready for the markets we want to enter?
The bloc’s 21 member states offer avenues for stronger commercial relationships.
However, regional leadership alone cannot secure shelf space for Zimbabwean produce.
Buyers need confidence in what they purchase, where it comes from and whether suppliers can consistently meet agreed standards.
Traceability, compliance and quality must, therefore, accompany our export ambitions.
Opportunity comes with responsibility
COMESA’s Free Trade Area, launched in 2000, provides preferential access for qualifying originating goods between participating countries. Exporters must verify the applicable arrangements for each destination. Membership does not mean that every product automatically enters every COMESA country duty-free and tariff preferences do not replace food safety or plant health requirements.
There are opportunities worth investigating.
ZimTrade’s earlier research identified prospects in Lubumbashi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, for processed foods, horticulture and agricultural inputs. Such findings provide a starting point for buyer engagement.
Producers must still establish current demand, delivery costs, product specifications and the applicable trading arrangements.
For Zimbabwean farmers, this could mean supplying graded vegetables through an aggregator, producing beans for a regional packer or providing groundnuts to a processor.
For enterprises, possibilities include packaged foods, spices and dried products.
These are opportunities to test commercially, rather than guaranteed markets for whatever happens to be available. The challenge is to move from asking whether a market exists to understanding what qualifies a product to enter and remain in that market.
A buyer may like the price and appearance, yet decline the consignment because the supplier cannot provide adequate records or demonstrate compliance.
Knowing the journey of a product
Traceability is the ability to follow a product through relevant stages of production, handling and distribution.
In practical terms, it should help answer straightforward questions: who produced it, where was it grown, when was it harvested, how was it handled and who received it?
FAO identifies traceability and recall systems as important tools within food control.
When a problem emerges, records help identify affected products and support their withdrawal.
Traceability does not itself make food safe. It works alongside good production practices, hygiene, inspection and appropriate testing.
Consider an aggregator collecting tomatoes from 20 farmers. If all deliveries are mixed without identification, a complaint about one consignment becomes difficult to investigate.
Recording each supplier, collection date and batch, and linking those records to dispatch documents makes it easier to establish which produce reached which customer.
The same principle applies to groundnuts supplied for processing. A buyer investigating contamination needs information about sourcing, drying, storage and delivery. Records help locate weaknesses and target corrective action. Without them, uncertainty can extend beyond one farmer and undermine confidence in the entire supply arrangement.
Traceability need not begin with expensive technology. A clearly maintained notebook, supplier register, labelled containers and numbered delivery notes can establish a useful foundation. Digital systems can improve efficiency as volumes grow, but a QR code is only as reliable as the information behind it.
Compliance starts before planting
Export preparation should begin with the destination’s requirements and the buyer’s specifications. Depending on the commodity, these may concern pests, pesticide residues, contaminants, packaging, labelling or certification.
Requirements differ across products and markets; farmers should obtain clear guidance before committing land, inputs and working capital. Growers should record seed sources, field locations, crop protection treatments, application dates and harvest dates.
They should use authorised products according to label instructions and observe prescribed intervals before harvesting.
Records support verification, while correct farming practices reduce the underlying risk. Neither can substitute for the other.
Export documents also serve different purposes. A COMESA certificate of origin supports eligibility for preferential tariff treatment.
A phytosanitary certificate, where required, addresses the importing country’s plant health requirements.
Neither should be confused with a universal guarantee covering every aspect of food safety or commercial quality.
Quality must survive the journey
Competitiveness includes what arrives at the buyer’s premises. Vegetables harvested in good condition can lose value through rough handling, unsuitable packaging or delayed transport. Beans may disappoint through inconsistent grading or foreign material.
A processed product may struggle because its packaging fails to protect its shelf life.
Quality specifications should therefore be agreed before dispatch. Producers and buyers need clarity on grade, size, moisture where relevant, packaging, quantities and rejection procedures.
Consistency matters: a successful first delivery creates expectations that subsequent deliveries must meet. Reliability is what converts an initial transaction into repeat business.
Smallholders can participate through organised clusters that share training, aggregation and compliance costs. However, groups must preserve supplier and batch identification when combining volumes. Aggregation should increase commercial scale without destroying the information needed to verify origin, investigate complaints and reward farmers who consistently meet requirements.
Turning access into lasting sales
AMA’s role in organised agricultural marketing should reinforce this preparation through farmer registration, market intelligence and stronger producer–buyer linkages, alongside technical agencies and ZimTrade.
Registration can support identification, but effective traceability also requires records connecting production, handling and sales.
Tina Nleya is AMA’s marketing and public relations manager. She can be contacted on email: [email protected]. Word From The Market is a column produced by AMA to promote market-driven production.
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Training should make these practices accessible to smaller producers.
These disciplines also protect domestic consumers and strengthen confidence in Zimbabwean agriculture overall.
Zimbabwe’s COMESA chairmanship offers a valuable platform for advancing trade.
Our response must be products that buyers can trust: competitively priced, consistently graded, properly documented and responsibly produced.
The farmer who can explain aproduct’s journey is better positioned to defend its value.
Regional opportunity becomes lasting income when quality and credibility travel with every consignment.
Tina Nleya is AMA’s marketing and public relations manager. She can be contacted on email: [email protected]. Word From The Market is a column produced by AMA to promote market-driven production.
