ZIMBABWE seeks to grow plunging horticultural exports through engaging Europe-Africa-Caribbean-Pacific Liaison Committee (COLEACP) to improve market access, facilitate access to finance and tap technical assistance.
By Fidelity Mhlanga
ZimTrade chief executive officer, Sithembile Pilime said COLEACP, which is part of the intra ACP indicative programme 2014-2020 for co-operation between the European Union and the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries, will help address prevalent hurdles in the horticultural value chain.
“The timing of the COLEACP intervention is very appropriate for Zimbabwe, as we are actively charting a way forward for the development and promotion of exports, with a special focus on agriculture and horticulture,” she said.
“The COLEACP programme, we are confident, will positively contribute towards addressing prevalent challenges within the horticultural value chain.”
Zimbabwe’s horticultural exports reached a peak in the 1999/2000 season with exports of $143 million, which was 10% of total exports, contributing about 4,5% to the country’s gross domestic product, making horticulture the second major foreign currency earner in the agricultural sector after tobacco.
Horticultural exports nosedived between 2000 and 2008, before bouncing back to $71 million in 2012 and $96 million in 2015.
Last year exports took a knock to $83 million.
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COLEACP supports companies producing and exporting fresh and processed fruit and vegetables from ACP countries to develop and improve market access, facilitate access to finance, market intelligence and technical assistance.
COLEACP regional co-ordinator of operations, Yessie Meyer yesterday said the organisation would scale up small-scale horticultural activities by supporting food safety system implementation, which is one of the prerequisites to exporting products to the European Union.
Netherlands headquartered Your Business Expansion executive, Bert Van Den Bos said his organisation was capable of aiding horticultural companies to overcome export hurdles.
“It’s in our experience that all small and medium enterprises have problems selling their products to the international market and many of them have the ambition to sell, but they face so many hurdles when doing that,” he said.
“Therefore, we want to help them overcome those hurdles because we have been doing it so often, so we know the way around.”
In April last year, ZimTrade signed a memorandum of understanding with a Dutch firm, PUM to carry out a scoping exercise of the horticulture sector.
To date, 40 farmers growing mangetout, sugar snap peas and onion are being assisted under the programme.
