By Kudzaishe Chimonera
Government is seeking to transform its agricultural sector from traditional farming into a business-driven, industrialised system as part of a broader strategy to boost economic growth and resilience.
Speaking at a workshop on continental agricultural reforms, Lands and Agriculture Minister Anxious Masuka said the country is shifting its focus towards agro-industrialisation an approach that emphasises value addition, efficient systems and market-driven production.
The move aligns Zimbabwe with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) a continental framework recently updated by African leaders to guide agricultural transformation over the next decade.
Masuka said the revised CAADP plan marks a departure from a narrow focus on food production, instead promoting value chains, resilience and inclusivity.
“The major issue was that we needed to move away from just agriculture to a more value chain approach to agro-industrialisation.This means treating agriculture as a business and building systems that support it,” he said.
Zimbabwe has already begun incorporating these priorities into its national policies particularly through its Agriculture Food Systems and Rural Transformation Strategy which is linked to the country’s wider development agenda.
Key elements of the new approach include strengthening climate resilience, improving infrastructure and logistics and expanding value addition processes to ensure that more economic benefits are retained within the country.
“We wanted to capture more value by focusing on aggregation, value addition and beneficiation,” Masuka explained.
The minister added that the government is adopting a systems-based approach, looking beyond farming itself to factors such as energy supply, financing and transport networks — all seen as critical to agricultural success.
A central ambition of the policy shift is to redefine Zimbabwe’s role in the region.
“Zimbabwe no longer wants to be considered as a food basket. We want to transform to become an agro-industrial hub,” Masuka said.
The workshop aimed to familiarise stakeholders with the updated continental framework which Zimbabwe has already begun implementing through its domestic strategies.
