The Netherlands to assist Zimbabwe to rebuilt its floriculture industry
by Market Insider
Friday, 29 Apr. 2016
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe requested in 2013 the intervention of the Netherlands government to help rebuild the country's ailing horticulture industry after it slipped into stagnation when exports dropped, said a diplomat in Harare.
From an annual revenue of US$ 143 million in 1999, statistics indicate that the country earned a paltry US$ 40 million through horticultural exports in 2013. And last week, Zimbabwe's export trade promotion body, ZimTrade, said the value of horticultural exports declined to US$ 23,5 million in 2014/15.
At its peak, the sector was the second largest foreign currency earner after tobacco, contributing an average four percent to gross domestic product.
The country exported about 85 percent of its flowers to the Netherlands while about 90 percent of total fresh vegetables landed in Britain, South Africa, Zambia and Namibia, and British and South African markets consumed 80 percent of fruits.
Roses constituted 70 percent of cut-flower exports from Zimbabwe. The country's horticultural sector started experiencing problems from 2000, when government implemented agrarian reforms to increase the number of black Zimbabweans with access to fertile and productive farmlands. A few white commercial farmers occupied the majority of the productive land for about a century.
Nevertheless, Zimbabwe's agrarian reforms were poorly planned. There was no funding to help peasant farmers move from subsistence farming to large-scale commercial farming. As a result, the country has experienced shortages of farm produce for many years, including the staple maize.
Against this background, President Mugabe asked the Netherlands ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ms. Gera Sneller, when she presented her credentials to him in 2013, to find ways of rebuilding the industry, she recently revealed.
"The President told me that he wanted Zimbabwean flowers back at the auction (in the Netherlands)," Sneller said. "And as an embassy, we have been working on this. The PUM programme is exactly what is needed in Zimbabwe. Because of political situations, Zimbabwe has been isolated from international developments."
She was speaking at the signing ceremony of a memorandum of association between ZimTrade and PUM, a Netherlands based organisation that specialises in technical assistance to the horticultural sector.
"The intervention will assist to reposition the Zimbabwe horticulture sector, in particular small to medium scale farmers, to become key drivers in the growth of exports.Because there have been new developments in the global horticultural markets, Zimbabwe must therefore catch up fast.
ZimTrade chairman, Lance Jena, said: "The intervention will assist to reposition the Zimbabwe horticulture sector, in particular small to medium scale farmers to become key drivers in the growth of exports. This will be achieved through knowledge transfer in planting, production, harvesting, post-harvest management, processing as well as the contribution of horticulture economic growth", he added
Source: allAfrica.com / Financial Gazette