The Sunday News
FOOD and Agricultural Organisation for United Nations (FAO,) says a lot is being said these days about farmers becoming ‘entrepreneurs’. But what is entrepreneurship? What does it take to be entrepreneurial? How can an entrepreneurial behaviour be created and sustained? How can entrepreneurial skills be developed? How do entrepreneurial farmers respond to the changing farming environment? What strategies do they use? What actions do they take? And how can extension workers help farmers develop entrepreneurial capacity?
FAO adds that there are two parts to entrepreneurship. The first is the managerial skills needed to start and run a profitable farm business. The second is ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. Both are important. Managerial skills can be taught, but an entrepreneurial spirit cannot be taught.
Many farmers are already excellent managers and many also have some of the spirit of an entrepreneur. As ‘price takers’ many farmers have developed outstanding abilities to make the most of their resources. But being ‘price takers’ suggests that these farmers are not innovative, do not take risks, and lack the drive that is usually associated with an entrepreneurial spirit.
UN Africa Renewal Magazine points out that Zimbabwe is on an upswing and young people are the driving force. For example, the country is set to harvest 2.8 million tons of maize this year, triple the 2020 harvest, and making it the highest output in 20 years.
Of note is that about 57 percent of Zimbabwean women between ages 20 and 31 and 47 percent of men in the same age bracket are growing fruits such as mangoes and are involved in rearing livestock such as the prolific breeders boer goats, and cultivating tobacco and maize, which makes young farmers the mainstay of the new agricultural revolution.
It is clear that Zimbabwe’s structural economic transformation, from traditional office and factory jobs to informal entrepreneurship, is now extended to the agricultural sector, catching the attention of young farmers.
“We are seeing a pro-youth farmer’s mindset in Government, which sends positive signals,” said Gift Mawacha to the Africa Renewal Magazine, an agricultural historian at Chimanimani High School in east Zimbabwe, the country’s most fertile farm belt.
“And the youths are saying ‘hey, we are jobless but there is money in growing potatoes and flowers.’”
“My generation trained as accountants and social workers. Universities in Zimbabwe graduate thousands of students annually, but there is only a handful of civil service or corporate jobs for the unemployed,” said Itai Sedze (29), a sociologist who is now engaged in maize farming, also told the Africa Renewal Magazine.
The farming craze has indeed gripped the youths from all corners of the country, and what is exciting is that youths are not for it as subsistence farmers, but are in it to make money, which is good for food security and the economy.
What is therefore needed is a model for young farmers to continuously get training in their chosen fields, and how they can access funding as capital.
One young farmer who is doing well is Ishmael Dirahu (24), who quit a job as a motor mechanic in South Africa to pursue fish farming at his family’s plot in Umguza, Matabeleland North province. The move has paid as he is making profits in the range of US$5 000 and US$6 000 every month.
“When I decided to leave a well-paying job in Cape Town to try my hand at farming, my friends including some family members thought it was a bad idea. I obeyed my instincts and returned home and today, I have no regrets whatsoever. I engaged my father and he offered to assist with capital and we managed to construct five earth ponds with a total capacity to hold 50 000 litres of water. The ponds also serve as a vital water source for the horticulture project,” he said.
