Audio Interview: A New Farmer Shares His Journey

Interesting interview….Sir Nige of @263 chat interviews a new farmer!!!

Sir Nigel's Journey...

I interview a new farmer who shares his journey:

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How To Start A Mushroom Growing Business In Zimbabwe

Grow Mushrooms in Zimbabwe

Bizsetup Group

growing mushrooms in Zimbabwe

The Mushroom growing business in Zimbabwe has proven to be a profitable business opportunity for quite a few entrepreneurs and farmers. For people looking to make money in Zimbabwe, without a lot of start-up capital, or a huge bank loan or cash rich investors, small-scale growing of mushrooms could be the perfect opportunity.

Have you considered it? If so, use the form below to get in touch.

Part of the excitement over this new local business opportunity is that it’s not very capital-intensive or complicated to start, and even if you have never grown mushrooms before, it could still be a viable idea for you.

In developing countries like Zimbabwe, the cultivation of certain species of mushroom is gaining momentum as a productive use of agricultural wastes.

If starting a mushroom growing business in Zimbabwe is something you’re interested in, we can help. We’re able to…

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New Food Festival Set for Harare

The Food Festival is slated for the 23rd-25th of May at Rainbow Towers.

Take a look at this article on the Three Men on A Boat site:- http://www.3-mob.com/?p=15788

This is a great opportunity for Young Farmers to market and sell your produce to the target market i.e. “embassies from around the world…restaurants, catering companies, fast food outlets, amateur chefs, beverage companies, supermarkets, the baking community and to all other parties with a keen interest in all things to do with food and well-being.” (http://www.3-mob.com/?p=15788)

 

The State of Youth Agrigreneurship in Zimbabwe (Paper)

Picture: http://www.ypard.net

Click on the paper below by Raymond Erick Zvavanyange titled, “The State of Youth Agripreneurship in Zimbabwe”

The State of Youth Agripreneurship in Zimbabwe

Tobacco Queens

 

Picture:ngodabusiness.info

Women farming tobacco….take a look!!

Zimbabwe’s emerging tobacco queens

Courtesy of Sowetan Live, May 12, 2014

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/business/2014/05/12/zimbabwe-s-emerging-tobaccoqueens

Madeline Murambwi sits behind the wheel of her brand new Toyota Land Cruiser, threading her way through the traffic in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

She’s on her way back from the tobacco auction floors where she just pocketed thousands of dollars.

“Tobacco farming is a brisk business here. Before joining it, I didn’t realise men were making lots of money out of this leaf. I have made great economic strides in my life,” Murambwi tells IPS, adding that she now also invests in property.

“So far I have made 42,000 dollars through tobacco sales, with more sales to come,” says Murambwi, 47, who has a 32-hectare tobacco farm in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland East Province.

In 2012, Murambwi ventured into tobacco farming and her business continues to grow each season.

“Faced with responsibilities I couldn’t avoid as a single parent, I turned to tobacco farming as a way to generate a more reliable income,” Murambwi says.

On the Zimbabwean market, a kilogram of tobacco can sell from between 2,67 and 2,91 dollars, depending on the quality.

According to independent statistics from the Zimbabwe Association of Women Tobacco Farmers (ZAWTF), 85,006 farmers, 32 percent of whom are women, registered to grow tobacco during the 2013 to 2014 season.

The government’s Tobacco Industry Marketing Board, however, estimates that there are currently 110,000 small-scale tobacco farmers, of which 39,5 percent are women.

“The increase in women tobacco farmers here is actuated by an increase in the number of single mothers, either widowed or divorced, pressed hard with financial responsibilities of looking after their children. They are fast finding tobacco growing a panacea to turning around their fortunes,” ZAWTF chairperson Grace Mapuranga tells IPS.

“Women here are fast becoming tobacco tycoons, holding their heads high in the midst of male tobacco farmers, who traditionally dominate the field of tobacco farming,” adds Mapuranga.

Elsie Msipa, 38, is one of those farmers who has seen her fortunes turned around by tobacco farming.

“Tobacco has changed my economic fortunes for the better. I now own clothing shops around Harare,” Msipa tells IPS.

She says her success if partly in thanks to the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, which has provided “expert knowledge concerning growing tobacco and assistance from different tobacco experts.”

According to the agriculture ministry, the tobacco industry accounts for 40 percent of exports.

The ZAWTF estimates Zimbabwe’s 2013 tobacco exports at 771 million dollars, with women farmers contributing 25 percent of the total exported leaf. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations ranks the country as one of the major tobacco exporters in the world. The leaf is exported to countries like China, Belgium, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Russia, Hong Kong, Sudan and Malaysia.

Behind the success of these new tobacco barons are civic organisations.

“We provide support networks to these women, ensuring they have access to resources and skills training and development,” Phides Mazhawidza, director of Women Farmers, Land and Agricultural Trust, tells IPS.

“More often women lack support networks to assist them effectively utilise the land and market their produce. We create collaborations between women farmers and other organisations, government and private partners to enable them get the best out of their land,” adds Mazhawidza.

Independent economist Artwell Jamela tells IPS: “Women tobacco farmers are bearing positive results on the country’s struggling economy, where tobacco accounts for 10.7 percent of Zimbabwe’s GDP.”

Jamela says as the number of economically-active women in the informal sector increases, it could result in female tobacco farmers overtaking their male counterparts as more Zimbabwean men are formally employed than women.

However, the Gender Links 2013 Barometer on Zimbabwe reported that although Zimbabwe’s economic framework calls for women’s participation in key sectors of the economy, there are no gender-responsive policies in the agriculture and mining sectors.

But a government official from the Ministry of Gender and Women Affairs and Community Development told IPS on the condition of anonymity that this would soon change.

“Plans are at an advanced stage for the government to align legal frameworks that would ensure equal opportunities between men and women in agriculture and mining ahead of the looming deadline of the 2015 UN Millennium Development Goals,” the official said.

Bamboo a viable alternative to tobacco

 

Picture: http://www.countryliving.com

Interesting article about the potentials of bamboo

Courtesy of The Independent, May 9, 2014, http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2014/05/09/bamboo-viable-alternative-tobacco/

By Bruce Gemmil

CLIMATE change which is dominating global headlines will to a large extent determine the future shape of agriculture in Zimbabwe.BRUCE GEMMILL

Other factors will have a strong influence, and these include population growth, the expected chronic food deficits in sub-Saharan Africa and other countries around the world, and also the likelihood of donor fatigue in Western countries.

These factors when combined make an overwhelming case for a strong productive commercial agricultural industry in Zimbabwe.

Since the country’s land reform starting around 2000, subsistence farming has pushed commercial farming to the margins.

By its very nature, subsistence farming can never become strong or sufficiently productive. To avoid chronic food shortages and persistent poverty which continue to stalk Zimbabwe, commercial agriculture, both large and small-scale needs to take over from subsistence peasant agriculture.

The foundation on which commercial farming is built is security of tenure for the man who works the land, holding it either in the form of freehold title or a negotiated tenancy agreement with the title holder, but under no circumstances leasing from government as is currently the case.

The realisation of strong and productive commercial agriculture is reliant on a robust and productive urban economy.

As small-scale commercial agriculture expands in the communal areas so employment must be created in the urban-based economy to accommodate those who do not wish to take part in the transition from communal to small-scale commercial agriculture.

Reducing the number of people dependent on the land for a living is a sound way of countering climate change. A modern-day example of this transition is China, which has moved from an agrarian economy to an industrial giant in four decades.

Zimbabwe’s agricultural industry will have to be re-built from ground zero after the politics of Zimbabwe gets back on an even keel.

This pending development will bring with it many investment opportunities. The investment opportunity I wish to focus on is the processing of bamboo, grown commercially on arms in well-managed plantations by professional farmers (small and large-scale).

These plantations would be located in both existing commercial and former communal farming areas. They would need to be within a reachable radius of the processing plant, similar in layout to the sugar cane estates of Hippo Valley and Triangle.

Bamboo could play a critical role as a replacement crop to tobacco whose future is uncertain given the strong international anti-smoking lobby and, locally, its impact on the environment due to deforestation.

For many years tobacco was the financial heartbeat of commercial agriculture. To reinstate quality tobacco as the core crop of a to re-built commercial agriculture would thus be extremely expensive and fraught with difficulties.

Grown as an industrial crop, bamboo is expanding rapidly in several Asian countries, particularly China.

Green, cut bamboo can be manufactured into a wide range of products from laminated boarding, plywood, chipboard, high quality fabric, pharmaceuticals, carbon fibre sheeting — the list goes on.
All the aforementioned products are in demand worldwide.

Another big factor in favour of growing bamboo as a farm crop is that it is labour intensive; harvesting the stems has to be done selectively by hand.

Bamboo is an expensive crop to establish, but if well-managed will yield up to 35 tonnes per hectare of biomass per annum. Again if well-managed, a plantation will have an economic life of 100 years or more.

Donors, such as, the African Development Bank should look favourably at giving financial support to such a crop.

Another possible plus is farmers who are due compensation and wish to return to their farms would more likely re-invest their compensation back into a secure perennial crop rather than a risky annual crop such as tobacco.

The proposal to pay farmers compensation in the form of tradeable bonds, underwritten by the World Bank, is commendable and would fit well with financing the recovery of commercial farms and businesses.

Farmers who take back derelict farms as the foundation on which to build their farming business would require large amounts of cheap long-term credit.

Tradeable bonds could be used as initial collateral, then as the farm and the accompanying farm business develop and gain value they could take over the role of collateral, thereby freeing up the tradeable bonds.

Commercial farming is still perceived by some Zimbabweans to be a colonial construction. There is no doubt it was introduced to the country by a white government for the benefit of whites, but commercial farming is universal and where practised eliminates the scourge of starvation.

Freehold title is the only form of land holding that brings together production and conservation. It is the only way forward for agriculture in Zimbabwe.

Bruce Gemmill is a former Zimbabwean tobacco farmer who also reared beef cattle and grew stone fruit.

ZiFM Stereo- Monday 12 May, 2014 at 1830hrs, Tune In!!!!

Written by Young Farmers’ Clubs

Picture: http://www.zifmstereo.co.zw

 

Young Farmers, Tune in Today at 1830hrs on ZiFM Stereo 106.4 (My Station, Your Station) for IMPACT with Zororo Makamba. He will be discussing “Youth and Agriculture”; success stories, challenges and opportunities. Don’t miss it!!!!!

Catch it on radio, below are a list of frequencies or via livestreaming http://www.zifmstereo.co.zw

Frequencies:

Harare 106.4 MHz

Bulawayo 106.7 MHz

Mutare 95.4 MHz

Masvingo 96.1 MHz

Gweru 104.3 MHz

Victoria Falls 106.5 MHz

Beitbridge 101.6 MHz

Mutorashanga 97.6 MHz

Kadoma 105.2 MHz

Nyanga 98.2 MHz

TUNE IN!!!!

 

 

Happy Earth Day

 

Picture: http://www.healthnetpulse.com

Written by Young Farmers’ Clubs

Happy Earth Day, Young Farmers!!!!!

Earth Day is an annual event that is celebrated on the 22nd of April, on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

Earth Day was first held in 1970 (today is the 44th anniversary)-with 20 million people across the United States rallying for increased protection of the environment. Earth Day is celebrated in more than 192 countries each year, and is coordinated by the Earth Day Network (http://www.earthday.org/)

Like Earth Days of the past, Earth Day 2014 will focus on the unique environmental challenges of our time. As the world’s population migrates to cities, and as the bleak reality of climate change becomes increasingly clear, the need to create sustainable communities is more important than ever. Earth Day 2014 will seek to do just that through its global theme: Green Cities. With smart investments in sustainable technology, forward-thinking public policy, and an educated and active public, we can transform our cities and forge a sustainable future. Nothing is more powerful than the collective action of a billion people. (earthday.org)

 

Check out this Youtube link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D806hNr-mrk

Have a Happy Earth Day, Young Farmers!!!!!

The Baobab

Pic: natureworkshop.com

 

Written by Young Farmers’ Clubs

This post is a bit different to what we usually write about.

In this post we’ll be looking at one of our indigenous trees, the Baobab (Adansonia digitata). Also known as the “upside down” tree, monkey bread tree, cream of tartar tree and the “Tree of Life”.

Quick Facts

• It is one of the oldest species of trees, dating back 6000 years
• It can store more than 120,000 litres of water
• It can survive in dry conditions for as long as 500 years

The baobab tree is mostly found throughout the South-east lowveld, South-west lowveld and the Zambezi valley in Zimbabwe. The tree produces long green or brown fruits, that contain a whitish pulp and kidney-shaped seeds. This tree has proved to have many amazing uses, the bark is used to make rope, mats, baskets, paper and cloth as well as many different types of craft work. In addition, the tree is used for social gatherings, where the local community can come together and discuss community issues, as well as ritual sites and burial grounds by local traditional leaders.

Nutritional Benefits

• Baobab fruit powder is exceptionally nutritious, containing high natural levels of dietary fibre, antioxidants, essential minerals including calcium, potassium, iron and magnesium
• The vitamin C content is said to be 6 times higher than that of an orange. Vitamin C acts as an antioxidant, protecting cells from damage by free radicals as well as aiding the absorption of iron and calcium
• Baobab fruit is a good source of calcium with 100mg of baobab fruit providing between 116 to 370mg
• Contains pectin- pectins are important for aiding digestion and balancing blood sugar levels
• Baobab contains both soluble and insoluble fibres to aid intestinal health and promote healthy gut flora

Other uses

• Leaves can be boiled and eaten
• The pollen can be used to make glue
• The powder, nutritious fruit pulp (cream of tartar) can be used in health or food supplements
• The powder can be used in confectionary e.g. cakes, scones and muffins
• The oil is used commercially in the medicinal and cosmetics industry. For example to produce soaps, cleansers, moisturisers, coloured make-up, hair and sun-care products

As the tree has many uses and benefits,this also results in ecological and environmental degradation. Therefore there is need for local and national government to create measures that ensure ecological and environmental sustainability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

International Year of Family Farming

Written by Young Farmers’ Clubs

This post is undoubtedly a little late, we’re in our fourth month of 2014, but the point is we’re still in 2014 and 2014 is “The International Year of Family Farming”!!!!!

The International Year of Family Farming is, “an effort to highlight the potential, family farmers have to eradicate hunger, preserve natural resources and promote sustainable development.” (www.un.org)

Here are a few facts and figures about family farming around the world:-

Key Facts

• There are over 500 million family farms
• They make up over 98% of farming holdings
• They are responsible for at least 56% of agricultural production on 56% of the land

Family farmers also work on a significant portion of the world’s farming land, regional averages are:-

• 85% in Asia
• 62% in Africa
• 83% in North and Central America
• 68% in Europe
• 18% in South America (www.fao.org/family-farming-2014/en/)

Family farming is hoped to assist in eradicating hunger, food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty. Therefore it is important for us to recognise their contribution and give them a greater role in policy making within our different countries.

Take a look at the video “Launch of the International Year of Family Farming”:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcH0f1qu25k