by Zivanai Dhewa

PUM, an Organisation from the Netherlands that connects Small to Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries and emerging markets in Netherlands and the rest of Europe, has today visited Zimbabwe to impart their business knowledge to Macadamia growers.

On their Twitter handle, Zimtrade posted their appreciation and acknowledgement of the visit by representative of PUM Organisation, and stressed that areas of focus will be on how to improve production.

“Focus will be on productivity and marketing initiatives,” read Zimtrade’s post on Twitter

Farmers expressed their joy at the opportunity to receive expert advice on improving their farming methods and also improve on their harvest. However, they bemoaned the stringent and prohibitive measures that buying countries impose.

“Please advise how we can participate.  I can also assist in rounding up other Macadamia farmers such as myself who would be interested so as to make such visits beneficial to us,” said farmer Justice Mtawarira.

 Takesure Taringana said, “Buying countries must remove exploitative and unfair tariffs on processed Macadamia and Coffee from Zimbabwe to ensure equitable benefits of agricultural productivity.”

He added that, “Terms-of-Trade for raw Macadamia and Coffee are bound to decline in the long run relative to manufactured imports.”

The push for exports follows President Mnangagwa’s call for the country to work on producing more exports as compared to imports in order to attract more foreign currency in the country.  As an Agro-based economy, it only makes sense that more imports should find their way into the international community given their organic state.