Charles Dhewa Review Correspondent
Countries such as Germany and Japan, which had to build their nations from scratch following a war, have demonstrated that economic revival is not so much based on financial support from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It is more about citizens’ commitment to work hard andpositively change collective circumstances. For Zimbabwe, economic revival and growth is certainly anchored on agriculture.

Some of the questions we are still grappling to answer as a nation include: Can we not turn cabbages and animal products into exports? Why are we still importing commodities that we should be producing locally? Is it a problem of finance or know how? Why do we have problems of animal skins not being collected when our young people say there is no work to do?

Why are our young people failing to recognise the opportunity in cutting grass and making hay for a growing livestock industry? Have our people forgotten how to work? How do we rebuild a working culture into ourselves?

Fruit juice is being imported because many people like it but no one is extracting the juice from local fruits. Zimbabwe is currently a net importer of tomato puree from China and Brazil yet tomatoes are rotting in Mutoko, Gokwe and Macheke. We are also a net importer of baked beans yet we have tonnes of beans produced locally.

Zimbabwe is at a point where economic recovery will not depend so much on foreign direct investments, but people digging into themselves and embracing a winning attitude.

We need a social will to work and turn things around. FDI will become useful when people feel a duty to turn things around. Sometimes we have to be willing to work for nothing in order to get things going. If everyone has to wait for money in order to work, nothing will be done.

While Zimbabweans are said to be hard working, a quick-fix mindset and short cuts in service delivery have taken root over the past few decades. With everyone producing crops, livestock and eggs in order to survive, there has been a break – down in the meaning of excellence.

A terrible culture of over-charging and unjustified profiteering has also engulfed our country. People are asking for the earth to do simple tasks.

Although there are still people able to do things really well, the majority need significant re-skilling as well as multi-skilling.

Unfortunately most of the training programmes floating around are not practically useful, hence we end up with people with certificates and degrees but not able to accomplish simple tasks in ways that satisfy customers.

As a nation, we are currently talking a lot about value addition in the agriculture sector because we have realised that production alone will not lead to economic revival.

Addressing inefficiencies in value addition requires a unique mind set and set of skills which are becoming scarce in Zimbabwe.

Among those who are trying to process vegetables and fruits, losses are immense due to lack of these finer skills and values.

How we can go about mapping types of skills in our agriculture value chains

One of our urgent tasks as a nation is mapping skills and values along our agricultural value chains. This will help us pinpoint gaps in skills and values.

Commodities like potato have potential to create more than 100 jobs per hectare right from production to marketing if properly mapped.

Some of the workers include: harvesters, loaders, transporters, traders and those involved in packaging. To the extent that all these activities add value to agriculture commodities, attention to detail will contribute to the professionalisation of all these tasks.

An evolving role for African Agricultural extension

Meanwhile, with the expansion of ICTs, extension officers will have to catch up with the digital revolution if they are to remain relevant. It’s no longer enough to be a simple agronomist because farmers now have diverse sources of agronomic information.

Historically, extension officers and private companies controlled both the generation and dissemination of agricultural information. ICTs have weakened that control, opening an array of new, independent information channels. These include numerous online communities for sharing and discussing farmers’ experiences as well as mobile apps which provide real time information daily.

Farmers are now able to personalise information and this extends their memory. Disparate and previously complex data is now being easily aggregated into sharp insights and best practices in producing particular crops or keeping livestock.

Combining production information with what is coming from the market and nutritional information collected by smart traders in the market is enabling real-time alerts to farmers and traders. Such digitally enabled approaches to agriculture are set to improve outcomes to the extent of influencing agricultural financing and access to loans.

You can’t continue teaching people how to grow maize, potatoes or rear cattle year in and year out. Extension advice directed at informed farmers should be different from that designed for novice farmers.

The more people become literate the less they will need extension advice all the time unless new commodities are introduced. Farmers in areas that are livestock oriented have mastered all the requisite knowledge such that there is no longer any new knowledge on extension. This means extension officers will have to move from information disseminators to knowledge brokers who can consolidate intelligence from diverse sources (markets, farmers, policy makers and community knowledge).

• Charles Dhewa is a proactive knowledge management specialist and chief executive officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa (Pvt) Ltd (www.knowledgetransafrica.com whose flagship eMKambo has a presence in more than 20 agricultural markets in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted on: [email protected] Tel: +263-4-669228 Mobile: +263 774 430 309 / 772 137 717 /712 737 430