Agri Liance expands footprint | The Financial Gazette
By Own Correspondent
MUTARE — Agri Liance, a private company established by a group of commercial farmers, has increased its cropping hectarage as it targets a turnover of $11 million in the current farming season, an official has said.
Zimbabwe’s commercial agriculture collapsed after former president Robert Mugabe’s government sanctioned the forcible seizure of land held by whites.
Although some sectors such a tobacco have recovered, output is still short of its pre-crisis peaks across the major crops.
The majority of resettled black farmers often lack the expertise and capital required to farm productively.
Many have since contracted some of the dispossessed white farmers to use their wherewithal to work the land, a practice Mugabe frequently criticised.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has, however, indicated it would support such farming partnerships, as it seeks the recovery of the economy’s anchor sector.
While charged with food security as a vice president in Mugabe’s government, Mnangagåwa championed partnerships between the State’s agriculture development agency and the private sector.
One such private entity, Agri Liance, which became operational in 2015, grows a variety of crops ranging from maize, soya beans, potatoes, sorghum, seed sorghum and wheat. It is also a seed producer.
Currently, Agri Liance’s operations are predominantly in
Mashonaland West with farms in Chegutu, Selous, Ngezi, Banket, Enterprise, Mt Hampden, but it also has farms in Rusape and Chipinge, Manicaland.
Agri Liance chief executive officer David Van Breda told The Financial Gazette that the company had increased crop hectarage from 200 in 2015 to 3 000 hectares this season.
“Our hectarage has increased tremendously over the years. In 2015, we started at 200 hectares and in the previous farming season (2016/2017) we grew to 1 600 hectares, before almost doubling that to 3 000 hectares this season (2017/2018),” he said.
“So, this season, we project to realise a turnover of $11 million. This is a turnover and not actual profit,” said Van Breda on the sidelines of an investment meeting organised by the Agricultural Research and Development Authority (ARDA) to brief Manicaland Minister of State, Monica Mutsvangwa.
He did not say how much the company had earned in the previous season.
He revealed that they had partnered ARDA on two projects that are currently underway.
ARDA chairperson Basil Nyabadza confirmed the partnership: “We engaged Agriliance sometime in September last year for a public private partnership (PPP). We concluded the deal in November. So far, two projects are already underway and this is ARDA Nijo (Mashonaland East) and ARDA Rusitu (Chipinge, Manicaland). More projects will be rolled out under the same PPP initiative with Agriliance,” he said.
Nyabadza said this brought to 19, ARDA’s operational estates, out of a total of 21.
Van Breda said the ARDA partnership was targeting smallholder farmers in Buhera to boost groundnuts output and beef up the wheat hectarage in Middle Sabi in the next two years.
[email protected]