Online Reporter
Edgar Vhera
Specialist Writer – Agribusiness
The Land Fortune Market Place (LFM) and Knowledge Transfer Africa (eMKambo) have joined forces to launch a US$5.2 million integrated digital agricultural market platform, designed to connect farmers to better market information in Zimbabwe.
This comes on the backdrop of increasing climate variability, evolving market dynamics, complex cross-border trade systems and the growing scale of informal markets that demand bold, coordinated and data-driven responses.
LFM is a consolidated digital market place for Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector – combining physical warehouses and electronic commerce.
eMKambo is a social enterprise working at the intersection of formal and informal markets where it has been gathering and sharing agricultural market intelligence for over a decade
Speaking during the launch of the LFM-eMKambo Market Place Platform in Harare recently, LFM chairperson, Engineer Leo Mugabe said the platform was aimed at translating land reform into wealth.
“The platform is aimed at integrating farmers, vendors, consumers, input suppliers, banks, insurance and manufacturers for oneness.
“It is aimed at strengthening the gains of the land reform programme into sustainable wealth,” he said.
Eng Mugabe revealed that US$5.2 million had been committed towards operationalising the system after realising that the agriculture value chain had broken connections.
LFM provides one integrated ecosystem linking farmers, input suppliers, traders, buyers, extension stuff, financial services, warehouses and logistics together.
“The system is aimed at monitoring and evaluating production and tracking farmers in groups for integration with vendors who are our biggest market.
“The system is aimed at price discovery and elimination of opportunistic middlemen and improving farmer welfare,” he added.
The platform will work on the basis of the Warehouse Receipt Act and provides a digital marketplace, inputs and services, logistics and distribution, warehousing and aggregation, payments and settlement and communication.
With most farmers located in rural areas, the platform has been granted a unified communication licence by Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) and currently has the capacity to take onboard 2,2 million farmers.
The platform will sustain itself through listing, transaction and delivery fees, subscriptions, storage and aggregation, advertising, premium shops, input sales and data services.
Eng Mugabe said registration on the platform was for free and trading attracted only US$5.
eMKambo chief executive, Dr Charles Dhewa said the platform was aimed at solving the disconnect between production and agricultural markets as well as growing scale of informality.
Addressing these issues demands a more advanced, integrated and responsive market-based early warning system.
“LFM-eMKambo is a fluid platform that lives where real agribusiness happens and people actually trade and share knowledge.
“What makes the platform an early warning system is capacity to harvest and consolidate the rich intelligence embedded in market signals,” he said.
Dr Dhewa said Zimbabwe had a food basket comprising at least 100 commodities, more than 40 mass markets, 1,1 million farmers (600 000 participating in the market across Zimbabwe daily), 25 000 food traders and 40 000 food vendors.
“Zimbabwe also has 10 000 food caterers, 2 000 transporters, 4 000 push cart transporters, 500 formal food buyers, 45 financial institutions, 37 input suppliers, 150 nurseries, 2 000 long distance buses (that carry food from cities to rural areas and vice versa) and 3 000 commuter omnibuses.
“LFM-eMKambo platform strives to close the knowledge gap of undocumented, self-organised and unrecognised food systems on contribution to Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” he added.
The LFM-eMKambo platform is expected to assist in managing food imports and exports, financial inclusion, food safety and traceability.
Officially launching the platform, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development permanent secretary, Professor Obert Jiri said Government expected the platform to accelerate the transformation of agriculture and agri-food systems into a modern, inclusive, resilient and market-oriented sector, to drive Vision 2030.
He was represented by his Ministry’s business development, markets and trade chief director, Mr Clement Bwenje.
“As Government, we hope that the platform will integrate mass markets intermediaries, popularly known as Makoronyera, so that they become formal brokers or sales representatives who can trade on behalf of farmers under transparent and fair arrangements.
“In this way, the platform can help formalise existing market relationships rather than displacing them, while promoting equitable sharing of margins between farmers, brokers, traders and buyers,” he said.
