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Sustainable solutions are required so that rural farmers do not lose out on their investments.

Munyaradzi Simango : Correspondent

In the face of a severe drought that Southern Africa is currently experiencing as a result of the El Nino phenomenon, many Zimbabweans in affected areas have had no option but to sell their cattle for as little as $100. Rural communities like Matabeleland South have not been spared as desperate locals offload their cattle fearing losing out completely. With such challenges, sustainable solutions are required so that rural farmers do not lose out of their investments.

An example is Gwanda Abattoir, a division of Mandanda Investments (Pvt) Ltd, which is providing smart solutions for smallholder cattle farmers in Matabeleland South.

The abattoir was established through a matching grant facility from SNV Zimbabwe under the Danida funded Rural Agriculture Revitalisation Programme (RARP).

Mandanda Investments managing director Eggs Asima said; “We are saving the lean and dying cattle as we supply drought affected smallholder farmers with stock-feed on credit and provide a ready market for their cattle.

This allows farmers to rehabilitate their animals and fatten them to produce quality meat. We then offset the cost of the stock-feed that we advance to farmers when they bring their cattle to the abattoir for slaughter.”

Mandanda Investments (Private) Limited, trading as Farm Harvest, is an integrated beef value chain enterprise with business units that include cattle ranching, a restaurant and meat processing, distribution as well as retail through its butchery outlets.

The company established Gwanda Abattoir after receiving a Danida matching grant through SNV in 2014. The grant was used to construct and equip a state of the art abattoir with capacity to slaughter and process 50 animals per day.

Asima said: “We are originally cattle farmers and we used to sell at the auctions. However, we got to a point where we thought it wise to expand the value chain in line with the demands of our market. We then established a butchery which was followed by a restaurant.

“Following the decommissioning of the Liebig West Nicholson canning plant near Gwanda, the town did not have other slaughter houses for the cattle-rich region. As a result we made the decision to construct an abattoir and applied for a matching grant from SNV.”

Gwanda Abattoir provides a ready market for over 200 smallholder cattle farmers in Matabeleland South.

Asima said that the facility has stimulated commercial beef production in the smallholder sector and enhanced household incomes as farmers can now sell locally without incurring the cost of transporting their cattle to distant markets.

He said: “We also fatten the steers before slaughter in order to enhance the quality of our meat and we distribute through several local retail outlets. In addition, we recently established a strategic partnership with a meat distribution company, Heads and Hooves, to distribute meat products nationally as the local market cannot take up our entire production.”

The Danida funded matching grant programme through which the abattoir was established provides funding to agribusiness SMEs that are committed to regaining competitiveness through investments in technology upgrades and market development.

The programme is designed to strengthen SMEs and enhance productivity while improving their competitiveness in domestic and international markets.

Since 2014 the programme has disbursed over $600 000 in grants to SMEs in the agriculture value chain involved in the dairy, agro-dealership, oilseeds, horticulture and beef sub-sectors.

The matching grants are not loans advanced to the sector. To qualify for the grant, the SMEs have to commit to investing a percentage ranging from 50 to 30 percent for rural and women led projects, of the project cost as their contribution.

The matching grants initiative is part of the three year Rural Agriculture Revitalisation Project that is implemented by the Netherlands Development Organisation [SNV] working in collaboration the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development and the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development.

Using an integrated value chain development approach, RARP has worked to address growth challenges in agriculture.

The project aims to contribute towards the creation, reinstatement and growth of sustainable commercial production for a targeted 280 000 smallholder farming households throughout all eight rural provinces in Zimbabwe.

In line with this, the project has over the past two years put in place support mechanisms for agri-business actors and market-oriented smallholder farmers through matching grants, technology upgrades, technical assistance, value chain development and improved access to farming inputs and viable output markets.