eBusiness Weekly
In the last 20 years, women have established more defined roles in agriculture.
In Zimbabwe, women are involved in agricultural production, processing and utilisation.
A woman’s role in the agricultural sector is significantly affected by socioeconomic factors such as income, education and access to land, infrastructure, affordable and gender sensitive finance.
In order for agriculture to advance in Zimbabwe and create an enabling environment that promotes equity and equality, there must be an agriculture policy and strategy which will help coordination and promote the development of value chains designed to meet the needs of omen.
Once there is equity and equality in the agricultural sector, women will actively participate in the value chain. Currently women are the first point of contact after harvesting as they sell produce at markets, road sides, and supermarkets. Bulk buying of produce is capital intensive as a result most women are left out due to lack of gender sensitive financing.
One critical area is tillage and logistics this is male dominated, with less than 0,05 percent of players being women, this creates a disparity within the sector as women produce almost 6o percent of all the food consumed. If they are not actively participating this leads to disenfranchisement and inability to deal with market forces within the agribusiness value chain.
Women are involved in small scale processing of peanuts, small grains and vegetables but these operations have not been commercialised to have a far reaching impact within communities. Processing in agriculture is mainly small-scale and informal. In contrast 98 percent of the large scale processing companies are owned by men.
Although women constitute a large portion of the farming population, opportunities within the sector are limited due to Gender insensitive policy and methods of implementation in terms of access to extension services, information, access to land and affordable financing. As a result of the various challenges which are multi-faceted and vary according to cultural groups in Zimbabwe.
Women tend to work in sugar, coffee plantations, cotton fields and export crops such as blue berries, exotic vegetables, paprika as labourers rarely as growers and exporters. In most cases, women tend to participate in small-scale animal production including small ruminants, poultry and aquaculture.
As a young woman in the agribusiness sector I founded the Women’s Farming Syndicate, an organisation that was established with an inclusivity thrust.
This is achieved by identifying smallholder farmer groups, creating clusters and providing training and giving farmers platforms to showcase and promote their produce. In Domboshava we have secured a 5 acre plot where rural farmers who produce herbs, vegetables, fruits, small grains, exotic foods, and cereals will be processing their produce for export. This centre will provide training on good agronomic practices and post-harvest handling and linkages to affordable financing and appropriate technology. This ensures consistency, high quality supply of produce and also improved livelihoods of our rural farmers and their communities.
Inclusion does not just happen it require strong political will and involvement of all key stakeholders. It is necessary to undertake data driven research, to highlight scale of exclusion and show urgency for action to remedy inequalities within the sector. There are many models that have worked and failed as a nation we need to look at lessons learnt and leverage on best practice for successful implementation.
◆ This article was writen by Tsitsi V.S. Machingauta for Maricho Magazine. Tsitsi is executive director, Women’s Farming Syndicate.
