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George Maponga–Masvingo Bureau

More than 1 500 households in the semi-arid Mwenezi and Chiredzi districts in southern Masvingo have been brought into a programme to boost incomes by a non-governmental organisation spearheading paprika farming, with a processing plant accelerating development of Rutenga into a town.

Sustainable Agriculture Technology (SAT) is a community driven NGO that operates in Mwenezi and Chiredzi, with the aim of eradicating poverty.

Prior to the paprika farming, the organisation was involved in a joint cattle-feed grass growing project near Mwenezi River using irrigation water from Manyuchi Dam.

The organisation now wants to assist communities in Mwenezi and Rutenga to grow paprika for a processing plant being built at Rutenga growth point.

The processing plant will be the third processing industry at Rutenga, as the small town develops fast into a burgeoning processing and value-addition hub in southern Masvingo.

Rutenga is already home to the Mapfura/Marula value addition and beneficiation plant that has transformed lives of villagers who pick the abundant fruit that is ubiquitous in Mwenezi and surrounding areas for the plant.

Another processing enterprise at Rutenga is a state-of-the-art abattoir now taking shape at the growth point.

Mwenezi Rural District Council chief executive Mr Albert Chivanga noted that the paprika production and processing project was a boon for the growth point.

The SAT-spearheaded project would boost incomes for rural communities.  ‘’Building of the processing plant is already underway and at least 1 500 households have been identified to grow the paprika that will feed into the plant and we are happy as a local authority that the industrial base of Rutenga continues to expand and we now have more than three processing industries,’’ he said.

“SAT has already been working with the community here and the paprika project is just consolidation of already existing cooperation between the communities here and the NGO.’’

SAT will give the benefiting households capacity to grow paprika on small plots, while some of the crop will be produced under irrigation on the banks of the perennial Mwenezi River.

“Research has shown that paprika can also do well in dry areas like Chiredzi and Mwenezi, hence this project,” said Mr Chivanga. “Paprika will be produced at household level with some of the crop being grown under irrigation because there is abundant water for that and communities are happy and upbeat about the project’s prospects.”

Rutenga was now firmly on course to be a town with a solid industrial base, a development which the local authority believes will add impetus into its prospects for attaining town status. Mwenezi RDC has already applied for town status for its capital, and the growth point’s rapid growth is expected to help it achieve the feat soon. 

Commercial production of paprika to supply the Rutenga processing plant comes as the National Biotechnology Authority of Zimbabwe that runs the Mapfura processing plant at Rutenga is also reportedly planning to formally apply for up to 10 000 hectares of land around Rutenga for developing a mapfura plantation.

The plantation will be irrigated using water from Manyuchi Dam near Rutenga.