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Monalisa Chikwengo
EFFORTS to empower women economically continue to grow with ZimTrade recently striking a partnership with the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) in Mudzi district, Mashonaland East, to cultivate a sustainable value chain for baobab products starting from the cultivation stage to processing and marketing.
The project involves the establishment of a community-run baobab processing centre, where women farmers can process their baobab fruit into powder, oil and other value-added products.
The centre will provide training and equipment to farmers, as well as a centralised processing and storage facilities for their products.
According to ZimTrade, this initiative was launched in response to the challenges faced by rural farmers in Zimbabwe, particularly women, who often lack access to markets and struggle to make a living from agriculture.
“Women farmers in Mudzi district will have the opportunity to diversify their income streams and generate additional revenue by selling baobab fruit and related products,” said ZimTrade.
Despite its immense potential to empower citizens economically, baobab cultivation and processing has remained an underdeveloped industry in Zimbabwe.
ZimTrade has since been establishing export clusters across all provinces mainly to integrate rural communities into mainstream export businesses.
“These clusters aim to complement the Government’s devolution agenda of promoting the full utilisation of locally available resources and using communities to develop sound economic foundations from such resources, as the country moves towards achieving an upper middle-income economy status by 2030,” said ZimTrade.
The national trade development and promotion body also indicated that the target was to unlock access to international markets using value added products such as baobab powder and baobab oils, which are in high demand in international export markets, mainly those that fall under the European Union (EU).
“Through our partnership with CAMFED, we have various stakeholders who will assist with creating that sustainability not only through financial funding, but capacity development, knowledge trainings and more, for example, ZimTrade already works with international experts that offer local clusters training on export standardisation and export businesses, ZimTrade further explained.
Baobab is a natural resource and grows organically, which not only makes it environmentally friendly but also a low hanging fruit within the region, as it commands high demand on the export markets.
The baobab cluster initiative aligns with the Government’s broader efforts to promote sustainable agriculture, empower women, and build resilient rural communities.
Online Reporter
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