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Freedom Mupanedemo Midlands Bureau
Midlands provincial housing officer under the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Ms Matilda Manhambo is one of few women who have been bold enough to rise above common perception. Taking advantage of the Land Reform Programme’s gender inclusive approach, she applied for an 85-hectare piece of land.

She has since turned the farm, about 50km along the Gweru-Gwenoro Road, into a green belt, quite the envy of many.
She has taken many by surprise to become one of the best performing female farmers, not only in the Midlands province but nationally.

Today, many men are drawing inspiration from her, with her farm being frequented every now and then by farmers who want to tap from her wisdom.

What makes Ms Manhambo a unique farmer is that some of her produce has started attracting the export market and only recently, she started exporting green peas to the Europe.

“Since introducing drip irrigation at my farm, I ventured into potatoes and peas farming and I have since found a European market for my peas. I started exporting peas a few months ago and every week I export 1 tonne to Europe,” said the ever-smiling Ms Manhambo.

Besides exporting peas to the Europe where she says she is receiving her payment in pounds, Ms Manhambo has an array of other farming activities.

She has a piggery with over 300 pigs, she is into poultry, and she is also into cattle ranching with over 400 beasts. She is into goat rearing with around 200 goats.

The hard working Ms Manhambo says the cattle ranching and the piggery were the two projects that played a key role in equipping her farm, including installing solar powered electricity as well as the drip irrigation.

“I am still developing. I have only a 3 hectare piece under the drip irrigation which is using solar. I intend to increase the hectarage with the money realised from the exporting of peas. I hope to do this at a larger scale but the piggery project as well as some loans from the bank have help me set up the infrastructure at the farm,” says the ever jovial and grey haired Ms Manhambo.

A widow, many farmers are still failing to understand how Ms Manhambo managed to turn her farm which she got in its virgin state into a thriving green haven which it is today.

Even former Minister of Agriculture, Cde Douglas Mombeshora once toured Ms Manhambo’s farm and promised to increase the size of the farm after being charmed by Ms Manhambo’s work.

According to Ms Manhambo, one has to be passionate about farming in order to succeed with little available resources.
She says when got the farm in 2006, it was virgin land with teeming grass and trees that at first she even got confused over where to start.

“When I was allocated the farm, it was just a vast bush with nothing and for the first six months, I did not do anything as I was still trying to find out what to do,” she narrated.

Ms Manhambo said she then visited a bank and used her house as surety to access a loan.
“That loan I got from the bank helped me to get the ball rolling. I set up two huts for my employees and started building structures for my piggery projects. I drilled a borehole and set up a small solar power system,” she recalled.

Ms Manhambo said she kept on setting up infrastructure from scratch at the farm through supplementing her loan from the bank until the piggery project started paying off.

“It’s a long story for me to turn the farm into what it is today but what I just need to tell other farmers is that for one to succeed, you need to repay and service your bank loans.
“If you are a faithful client, banks are very helpful. It calls for determination for one to be a successful farmer,” she said.