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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
Honde Valley, which is part of the Eastern Highlands mountain range, is one of the most productive areas in Manicaland Province, if not the whole country.

Blessed with fertile soils and perennially flowing rivers, it is not only home to renowned vast tea plantations, but for decades, it has been the source of some of the best bananas, avocados, yams (magogoya), sweet potatoes and pineapples that the country has to offer.

Besides the tea, which is largely produced by commercial producers, fruit production has immensely changed the lives of the surrounding communities who sell their produce in markets as far as Harare and Mutare.

In most cases farmers have not been getting full value for their produce because they are forced to be price takers instead of price makers.

However, the benefits have not been as big as expected owing to the fact that no value addition has been done to the produce.

This at times results in some of the produce going to waste due to a limited market.

Only the commercial tea producers are currently value adding as they target the export market.

There has been a general agreement among farmers that the area needs to attract more investment for it to grow and realise its full potential as one of the biggest agricultural hubs in the country.

To this end, Mutasa North legislator Cde Chido Madiwa nudged commercial tea producers to apply for Special Economic Zone status for Honde Valley, which will enhance opportunities for investment into the value addition of tea and other horticultural products.

Cde Madiwa, who has been spearheading the initiative, said Honde Valley has the capacity to feed the whole nation and it should get the opportunity to bring in investment through the SEZ status.

“We are blessed with good soils and conducive weather for us to be able to increase production of all our produce. We need to make Government understand that we have plenty of produce but we have little to do with it except sell it, sometimes at very low prices,” she said.

“We as a constituency need to contribute to the fiscus by adding value to our produce. That is why the idea of making Honde Valley an SEZ would not only be beneficial to us as Mutasa North, but to the whole country.”

She said Honde Valley was unique in that it already had three big companies, Eastern Highlands Plantations Limited (EHPL), Northern Farming and Nyangani Renewable Energy contributing to the development of the area, which would make it easier for investment to cascade to other sectors of the economy.

“We have had the pleasure of presenting our idea at the Zimtrade annual exporters’ conference in Bulawayo before President Mnangagwa and he did show great interest in that. What we are growing here should benefit all of us and we know that we can get investors so we are now pushing to make it a reality,” she said.

EHPL general manager Mr Pratap Pareekh, whose company submitted the proposal, said the initiative would attract more investment from current and new investors.

“With the initiative from our Member of Parliament, EHPL has approached Zimtrade to facilitate its request to make Honde Valley an SEZ. SEZ offers many incentives on investments and will further help the Valley to grow and attract more investments from current and new investors,” he said.

SEZs are being established to:

 restore the economy’s capacity to produce goods and services competitively,

 create economies of scale good enough for the locator of the proposed SEZs to be internationally competitive

 ensure inclusive growth emanating from the spread of growth nodes and diversified provincial offerings

 maximise the economic benefits of a given geographical location and its stakeholders, and

 attract more investment from the international community.

Zimtrade is already working with pineapple farmers to get them certified to enable them to export their fruits to the European Union.

There has also been a proposal to establish a banana drying factory at Hauna business centre to ensure that farmers can get more value for their produce, but the banana factory project has however stalled owing to funding challenges.

With investments coming into the SEZ, such initiatives would begin to bear fruit and spearhead development in the Valley.

However, stakeholders feel that should the SEZ status be granted, the Valley would need to have access to the sea via a route that is closer than the Forbes-Machipanda border post, that is being currently used.

Government approved the establishment of a border post at Katiyo, which would cut the distance travelled to Beira by more than 100kms.

Mr Pareekh said if the border becomes operational, it would save them time and costs to transport produce.

“There hasn’t been a commercial border post at Katiyo. EHPL initiated it in 2013 and it is being continuously followed up every year. Besides cost saving on freight to Beira, it will help to move the export produce to Beira more efficiently avoiding the delays at Forbes border post,” he said.