Online Reporter
Patrick Chitumba [email protected]
FARMERS must move beyond selling raw produce and embrace value addition, aggregation and stronger participation across agricultural value chains to maximise returns from their businesses,
Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development Minister Dr Anxious Masuka has said.
Speaking at the recent Zimbabwe Farmers union (ZFU) meeting in Gweru, he challenged farmers to turn their operations into profitable businesses, saying they should retain more of the value generated from their produce.
“I urge you farmers to henceforth stop treating agriculture as a subsistence activity and instead turn your farms into profitable businesses through value addition, aggregation and stronger participation across agricultural value chains,” said Dr Masuka.
“Government wants agriculture to become a major engine of industrialisation, poverty elimination, import substitution and export diversification.”
Dr Masuka said the Agriculture Food Systems and Rural Transformation Strategy 2026–2030 was anchored on agriculture as a business, climate-smart production, an ecosystem approach, value chains and positioning Zimbabwe as an agro-industrial hub.
“For far too long, farmers have sold commodities in their raw form, whereas the value is at the next node of the value chain,” he said.
Dr Masuka said the ZFU should work with Government to aggregate farmers’ produce and promote value addition, beginning at ward level.
“We want to leave more of the value with the farmers,” he added.
“Every farming business unit should participate in aggregation so that farmers could collectively access markets and improve their bargaining power.”
Minister Masuka said agriculture should be a source of wealth creation rather than simply a means of poverty alleviation.
“We want to eliminate poverty. We want to be rich. We want to make money, and we have chosen agriculture as the means to make money.”
Dr Masuka pointed to tobacco as an example of how smallholder farmers could benefit from commercial agriculture, saying 85 percent of the 359 million kilogrammes of tobacco sold to date had been produced by smallholder farmers.
“Each smallholder farmer was earning an average of US$9 800 annually from tobacco, demonstrating the potential of agriculture to transform household incomes,” he said.
Dr Masuka said Government was also strengthening agricultural market governance through reforms aimed at improving transparency, farmer aggregation and access to structured markets.
“Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025 is part of the reforms intended to strengthen domestic agricultural value chains and ensure farmers receive a fairer share of the value generated from their produce,” he said.
The ZFU has previously backed S.I. 87 of 2025, which provides for increased local sourcing of agricultural commodities and a phased move towards greater use of locally produced raw materials.
Dr Masuka said farmers were often disadvantaged by weaknesses elsewhere in the value chain and called for greater transparency, accountability and ethical conduct among all players.
“Often, the farmer is taken advantage of in most value chains, and we must work with ZFU to reverse this,” he said.
Government had also approved reductions in agricultural fees, permits and levies in an effort to reduce the cost of doing business in sectors including dairy, horticulture, water and border operations.
Dr Masuka said the ministry would conduct policy impact assessments to establish whether such interventions were actually reducing costs for farmers at ward and village level.
He cited the removal of import duty on fertiliser as an example, saying farmers should see the benefit through lower input prices.
“If we say we waive import duty on fertiliser, 15 percent removed, we expect fertiliser to be 15 percent cheaper for farmers. So, that is what we want to check,” he said.
Minister Masuka said the broader objective was to position agriculture at the centre of Zimbabwe’s industrialisation and economic growth agenda, with farmers viewing production, aggregation, processing and marketing as interconnected stages of one business.
The ZFU itself has been promoting agribusiness-oriented farming and village business units.
