“Looking for a farm near Harare 30km radius to rent with easy access to water”. This in now the new tag line in most social media groups as the race for horticultural farming business intensifies. With land allocation having been temporarily halted to pave way for the land audit by the state land has become a precious commodity. This is especially true for land surrounding major cities such as Harare.
Perhaps the lockdown could have had some influence on the whole scenario as people suddenly found themselves with more time on their hands to utilise .We recently conducted a random survey to find out what is trending in terms of business in Harare. Top of the list with 45.37% was farming “Kurima ma vegetables”, which means growing vegetables which loosely encompasses every fruit and vegetable you can think of. This was quite an interesting observation as global trends show that fruit and vegetables are being dumped in tonnes as there simply is no market to absorb the product. This is largely due to the Corona virus as hoteliers and restaurants which are some of the biggest absorbers of fruit and vegetables were largely closed. This brings up the question, how viable is the fruit and vegetable business right now in Zimbabwe?
The survey took us all the way to MbareMusika which is perhaps the largest fresh fruit and vegetable market in Zimbabwe. Here we found cabbages being sold at shockingly low prices of 1USD for 10 heads of cabbages. Considering the input costs this farmer would be lucky to break even and more likely to make a loss. One of the farmers 28 year old Ronald or “Murimisi”, as he is popularly known by the touts at the market because of his high quality produce from Ruwa had this to say,” This time the market is bad, usually these touts come to my farm to buy these cabbages but not this year, the market is flooded I would rather recover something than let my produce rot, already I have run a loss by bringing produce all the way to Harare”.
This is the case with most farmers, most farmers made the mistake of following the trend without carrying out a proper analysis. Everyone now wants to get into the fresh produce business because this is where the money is, ok no problem with that but at least do it the right way. The following questions will help you carry out a quick self-assessment.
- What can you grow which does well in your climate?
- Do you have the financial capital to run this project?
- Do you have the expertise to grow the crops or are you able to hire qualified person?
- Do you have a proper financial budget for growing the crop?
- Do you have a ready market for the product?
If you do not check all the boxes above, I would strongly advise you rethink before diving into the veggie business. In farming one thing is for sure if you take short cuts you are bound to fail.
Then there is a special type of farmer who has particularly good financial capital base, this one will not spare a cent often randomly buying equipment and inputs without budgeting or proper planning. Perhaps they get into it for the selfies they post on Instagram nobody knows, however when financials are done at the end of the season the farmer would have made a loss financially, no business is ever run like that. Growing crops as a hobby and not running it as a business is not sustainable, bottom line is if you are to succeed in farming, small-scale, or large-scale you need to run it as a business. Plan, invest, execute, and harvest principle should always apply.
In conclusion I think it is pertinent to emphasize that farming is not a get rich quick fix. Experienced farmers will tell you that horticulture is a capital-intensive venture and it may take you 2-3 seasons before you start realising any significant profit as you sharpen your skill and correct errors. Remember it is always a worthy investment for farmers to employ the services of a professional agronomist to plan your cropping and production to get good results.
Emmanuel is a qualified Agronomist and Development Practitioner with more than a decade’s experience working in the agri-business industry and development sector. You can contact him on edndsep@gmail.com or WhatsApp on 0783495396
