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Business Editor
SMALL-holder farmers in Zimbabwe and the region should be capacited to value-add crops and conduct livestock semi-processing within their communities so as to create employment, an official has said.

Chief executive officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa (KTA), a private organisation focused on empowering small-holder farmers, Mr Charles Dhewa, said developing vibrant value chains should encompass small holder farmers who are often manipulated despite being sources of most agro-processing raw materials.

“There is a need to decolonise the agriculture value chain systems if the country is to achieve meaningful job creation and empowerment”, said Mr Dhewa.

He said crop and livestock farmers were struggling to buy stock feed yet they could semi-process soya bean,  sell crude oil and remain with stock feed .

“There should be technology for farmers to semi-process soya bean into crude oil and remain with stock feed at community level. Such semi-processing can easily happen at source.

“Of the $780 per tonne being offered for raw soya bean, how much refined oil and by-products will come from a tonne of soya bean?”

According to Mr Dhewa there is also no sensible reason why abattoirs are in urban centres when they should be in livestock production areas.

“It should just be a question of setting standards and chains so that slaughtering happens at source.

This will create employment at local level and lead to the establishment of downstream industries like leather tanning,” he says. “If cattle are transported from Insiza to Bulawayo, employment is created in Bulawayo instead of the rural areas prducing the cattle.”

Mr Dhewa says absence of processing technology and capacity is one of the main reasons why African countries are beset by rural to urban migration. To him people are following raw commodities from their rural areas and congregating at processing companies looking for employment.

“These people should be semi-processing their commodities at community, district and provincial levels, earning more income from their commodities. In addition to decentralising entrepreneurship, value addition at source will de-congest cities. When value addition happens in farming areas, most of the income from value addition activities will be retained at source. On the other hand, when everyone goes to urban centres where value addition takes place, 90 percent of the cash ends up circulating in urban centres as people who earn income and spend it in cities. Most of these activities should be happening at community, district and provincial levels,” says Mr Dhewa.