adminAgriculture Reporter
AN initiative aimed to transform the farming practices of young farmers into productive and commercially viable agri-business ventures has started bearing fruits in Honde Valley where a group of 20 youngsters have started a lucrative fruit and vegetable drying business. Dubbed the Young Farmers Innovation Lab – the initiative brings together UNDP, Zimbabwe Farmers Union, Harare Institute of Technology, Hypercube Technology Hub, Watershed College, Oxfam, Barclays Zimbabwe and GIZ among others all seeking to leverage their areas of comparative strength – to jointly support young farmers within this pilot.
The project was designed to showcase the success of young Zimbabwean farmers with the overall goal to integrate youths into the economy through agriculture for sustainable livelihoods and rural development. The pilot programme was launched in June 2015, targeting 100 young farmers from Honde Valley, Chimanimani, Murehwa, Gorumonzi and Harare peri-urban.
Ever since being exposed to market and business development skills and competencies, tools, practices and inputs for sustainable productivity the Honde Valley group never looked back and were on Thursday (yesterday) given four solar driers by ZFU and UNDP to enhance their business venture.
“The Honde Valley project started in June 2015 and the main thrust was value addition in their production line. They are producing bananas and vegetables and now they are adding value to the products with the ultimate goal of coming up with their own marketing label,” said ZFU provincial manager, Mr Lloyd Mataya.
“Their main challenge has been failure to get the required value-addition equipment as well as the technical skills, a gap that was addressed when ZFU and UNDP chipped in with the four solar dryers.
We are now working on getting a marketing label for their produce,” said Mr Mataya. Within this programme, the young farmers marketing label will be designed and developed for branding and distinguishing their produce on the market and a revolving fund will be made available as seed capital for the farmers.
The key results expected from the pilot include supporting the development of 100 young smallholder agri-business ventures that adopt sustainable production practices that are climate-and environment sensitive as well as new technologies for enhanced productivity and profitability; enhance their capacity to sustainably produce food crops for the market chains locally and globally with high quality food products – including value addition outputs in targeted poultry, fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices and to build a pool of 10 highly skilled social innovators with capacity to design, test, and pilot and deploy ICT-based agri-business solutions for the food production chain. ?
The Harare Institute of Technology will be involved on the technical side of the initiative which has potential to revolutionalise the farming sector. Technology will play a central role in driving and enabling innovative solutions in the agriculture sector.
The young farmers’ innovation lab is the first initiative of this kind in the long history of farming in Zimbabwe and has potential of not only meeting the food needs of the country, but also addressing the unemployment challenge among young people. The young farmers innovation lab is one such a creative model whose experiences and lessons can be scaled up to benefit many more farmers in the country.
The Harare Institute of Technology will be involved on the technical side of the initiative which has potential to revolutionalise the farming sector.
Online Reporter