Government seeks collaboration with Adra

GOVERNMENT through the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development seeks to integrate the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) Zimbabwe into the rural development strategy in a move meant to foster collaborations to improve rural communities’ livelihoods.

Adra has established a centre of excellence in Umguza district which is meant to assist horticulture farmers to store their produce in a bid to promote value addition and reduce post-harvest losses.

The Government is targeting transformation of rural and urban economies through enhancement of food, nutrition, markets, and jobs using value chains, including the horticulture sector, as a means of achieving a prosperous, inclusive, diverse, sustainable and competitive agriculture sector.

On Wednesday, Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Professor Obert Jiri toured the Adra centre of Excellence and indicated that Adra is moving in line with the Government thrust to promote rural development through establishment of facilities that promote rural industrialisation through agriculture.

The Adra centre of Excellence has a cold chain storage facility to assist farmers to sort, grade, cool and store their produce until it reaches the final disposal point. Post-harvest losses have been estimated at over 30 percent with horticultural produce the hardest-hit.

Lack of cold chain infrastructure is causing the country to import crops that it could have stored for increased shelf life and released gradually as dictated by demand on the local market.

Tomatoes, for instance, can be value added and stored before being released into the market at different intervals when there is demand.

This can also enable the country to export the processed products and earn foreign currency.

“We were scouting opportunities to integrate Adra in our already existing model of the Presidential Rural Development programme. There are potential areas of collaboration especially in aggregation centres which we are calling the whole of Government approach at ward level to uplift and build economies of scale to cut down logistics and other costs,” said Prof Jiri.

The Presidential Rural Development Strategy is anticipated to help unlock opportunities for rural communities in terms of access to clean and safe water, food security, poverty alleviation and employment creation.

Prof Jiri said the Government targets to drill 35 000 boreholes in 35 000 communities. To date, about 2 000 boreholes have been drilled countrywide.

“So, every borehole will have a one-hectare garden, but the main thrust is to ensure that the place where the borehole is located transforms into a village business unit. Our thrust is that people should start to see agriculture as a business,” said Prof Jiri.

He added that the business units should transform into companies that will provide employment to communities and livelihoods to shareholders.

“We appreciate what you are doing as Adra and we hope that you will expand to other communities,” he said.

Adra country director Mrs Judith Masvosvi said Adra complements Government efforts and she is collaborating with every strategic planning done by different Government ministries.

“In line with the thematic areas focusing on agriculture programming, Adra Zimbabwe was instrumental in crafting the Horticulture Recovery and Growth plan through supporting and coordinating the stakeholder policy consultative forums across the ten provinces,” said Mr Musvosvi.

“The organisation is partnering with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development in implementing key strategies under the Horticulture Recovery and Growth Plan.”

This is in line with a private sector led growth being implemented by President Mnangagwa’s administration under the NDS1 focus on private sector led growth.