The ManicaPost
Emmah Chinyamutangira Business Correspondent
ZIMTRADE is facilitating farmers in Manicaland to grow horticultural products, that are on high demand on the international market in a bid to increase export revenue for the country.
Speaking at the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) Manicaland business awards 2019, last week, ZIMtrade export development manager Mr Tatenda Marume said Manicaland had high potential to increase horticultural exports, hence the need to capacitate farmers on export techniques.
The company has started engaging international consultants to assist in increasing productivity in the country’s horticulture sector.
“Manicaland has many horticultural products that are on high demand on the international market while we are engaging small scale farmers in various horticultural projects to increase the export bill.
“There are seven products that we have targeted under the EU-Funded Trade Comm II project, which seems to capacitate small holder farmers and irrigation schemes doing niche products.
“In May we carried out a baseline study to identify areas where our local farmers require assistance for them to comply to international markets. Products under consideration include pineapples, macadamia, avocadoes, bananas, papirika and chilies as well as flowers,”said Mr Marume
He said there was also a high demand of organic pineapples and avocado in Europe. ZIMtrde has so far engaged some small-scale pineapple growers in Ndiyadzo, Chipinge, to gain access to the lucrative European organic market.
He emphasised that the project did not offer inputs but would deal with issues such as technical capacity as well as compliance to regulatory requirements and voluntary standards.
“We want to create a conducive environment for exporters while we are facilitating the organic certification process and an off-take agreement with a Dutch buyer that is already in place. The certification process was supposed to happen first week of May but the area was affected by cyclone Idai.
“We are trying to resuscitate the area by end of this year so that growers will be certified to export their products to Europe.
“We are also planning on assisting farmers on sweet potatoes project since there are also many Asian companies that are interested in importing them from our country,” he added.
