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Tapuwa Mashangwa
WITH climate change and the ever changing economic environment in Zimbabwe some might say that our agrarian future is doomed.
However, it is not over until it is over and there are reforms that can be made to alleviate this situation.
Agricultural diversification should be taken seriously.
During recent years a lot of farmers have been growing the same things and have been involved in similar projects.
However, there are initiatives like borehole drilling; dairy farming; fish farming; biogas production; crocodile farming; snake farming; mushroom production; market gardening; cattle fattening; egg production; compost and mulch formation and production; hydroponic farming; commodity trading; bee keeping; butcheries; duck, quail, geese, guinea fowl, ostrich rearing; sheep farming; goat rearing; warehousing; agricultural education/workshops; green housing; speciality flower production; fertilizer selling; herbicide sales; veterinary services; cereal production; dried food packaging and selling; producing and selling sheep cheese; llama, alpacas, guanacos or vicunas rearing for their pelts or wool; training and promotion of rural crafts.
For example — offering dry stone walling workshops; opening facilities for craft making and retailing; tourism — opening land up for camping or a bed and breakfast, non-food crops (planting of bamboos, gumtrees for posterior resale or for making furniture); shell fish farming, lobster farming and game hunting (depending on the size of land one owns or leases).
Worms for compost and bait, pharmaceutical crops and related products (for example aloe vera), all of these still have a market and earn good profits.
Agriculture and ICT can no longer be analysed separately, they coexist, correlate and intertwine.
In Zimbabwe we are still lagging behind in this regard. Access, efficiency and affordability of agricultural information continue to be a major impediment for raising agricultural productivity among smallholders in Africa.
Recently information and communication technology (ICT) has provided a possible pathway to ameliorate this scenario.
A variety of innovations that integrate ICTs into the dissemination of agricultural information to farmers (Farmers Information Services — FIS) have been developed at local, national and regional levels. They have currently demonstrated a promising field of new research and application in e- agriculture whilst bringing new sources of information and new tools for local knowledge dissemination.
We seem to forget that research is key and one cannot and should not get involved in something they have no knowledge about.
Research and strictly abiding by the agricultural rules, advice and information freely and cheaply available, consulting, asking experts and those running profit making farms helps immensely and one undertaking the obligatory task of reading, knowing and understanding an agricultural project at hand is the best place to begin to positively change things. A lot of losses have been made due to the lack of understanding and research.
The maintenance of agricultural equipment and machinery is also crucial. Benefits of maintenance and calibration in addition to protecting food safety, equipment maintenance and calibration is that they can maximise production efficiency and reduce equipment- related costs due to unexpected repairs, replacement and downtime thereby improving the general efficiency and effectiveness of functionality of the agricultural system.
Cluster or cooperative farming should be taken into consideration whereby farmers within the same location or region come together to farm the same crop to satisfy a demand market, to share equipment and or expertise, and also to exchange ideas and advise each other on new developments corresponding to their agricultural setup.
Not only does this concept work to target an export market but it also serves to assist those farmers that may have poor financial backing to solely embark on their desired agricultural project as money can be combined to purchase equipment that can be used on a rotationally scheduled basis.
We live in a world where the possibilities are endless henceforth we cannot look at agriculture as just some pastime dominant with repetition or copying and pasting agribusiness products and services but rather a business industry with infinite growth potential and virgin markets waiting to be explored.
The writer is Tapuwa Justice Mashangwa, a young entrepreneur based in Bulawayo, Founder and CEO of Emerald Agribusiness Consultancy. He can be contacted on 0739096418 or email: [email protected].
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