LOCAL farm implements maker, Kurima Machinery and Technology, says it is working with various agriculture development organisations to come up with initiatives that boost small to medium scale farmers’ mechanisation programmes.

Originally from Kenya under Marina Machineries, the company said its establishment in Zimbabwe was subsequent to President Mnangagwa’s proclamation of “Zimbabwe is open for business” mantra in 2018.

The company offers a wide range of agriculture equipment and accessories mainly the two-wheel tractors that are compatible with a wide range of farming equipment.

In an interview with our Harare Bureau, Kurima Machinery and Technology business development director, Mr Kush Sira, highlighted that his company elected to venture into Zimbabwe’s agriculture equipment supply sector since agriculture is a source of livelihood to a considerable number of Zimbabweans.

“Kurima chose agriculture sector in Zimbabwe because there is a huge population in the country that relies on agriculture, employed in the agriculture sector and as such there is a lot of potential in the sector, which if helped to grow can make Zimbabwe a breadbasket of Africa again.

“Small to medium scale farmers are our target market in Zimbabwe, we have machinery that suits their size. We focus on selling agriculture equipment because it is something that we have been doing since 1971 (in Kenya) but we came here because there is a lot of potential in Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector,” said Mr Sira.

He said his company was working with a number of finance and agriculture development institutions to come up with reasonable financing schemes for farmers that want to acquire farming machinery from the company.

Notable among the organisations are: the FBC Microfinance, Zimbabwe Agriculture Growth Programme (ZAGP) that will facilitate clients’ access to finance.

FBC is a finance institution while ZAGP focuses on the promotion of a broad spectrum of small-scale             agriculture from cultivation to livestock, dairy and poultry production.

“As far as we go, we are still a small growing company, we do not have a financial capacity to borrow the machinery but we do lay-byes.

“We have been working with institutions like FBC Microfinance and few other banks that we are trying to partner with. That will enable customers to access finance for the farming equipment.

“. . . we are also working with ZAGP and a lot of subsidiary organisations in dairy, livestock and poultry, with intentions of supplying machinery through them,” said Mr Sira.

He said the firm was working with the Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Ministry on terms of a service provision model that aims to mechanise most farmers across the country, particularly given the small-scale agriculture revolution underpinned by the Climate Proofed Presidential Inputs Scheme popularly known as Intwasa/Pfumvudza.