The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Farming Reporter
EUROPEAN African Seed Initiative (Easi Seeds) a joint venture between European and African business entities is aiming at bringing out the best varieties and to extend the best genetic material in Zimbabwe.
Easi Seeds Zimbabwe country manager Mr Tinashe Mugadza said in terms of breeding and genetics, European countries were mainly ahead of Africa, hence the joint venture was meant to merge what was happening in Europe with that in Africa so as to complement the African setting in terms of local climate. Easi Seeds is incorporated in Holland for the European side, in Africa it has branches in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda.
“In Zimbabwe we are a full-time seed company specialising in breeding production, marketing, distribution of seed and agricultural extension to all our farmers. We just don’t sell seed to farmers, we partner and help them to grow from production to making money, helping them to make bumper harvest,” he said.
For maize, the company has varieties, ZS269 and ZS265 but also they offered other products such as sugar beans, cowpeas and sorghum. To cater for the deficiency of sorghum on the market, Easi Seeds developed a unique hybrid red sorghum variety breed Easi 150 to cater for the farmers’ needs.
“We also do all vegetables, grain and puff seeds with variety of a variety of seeds that are high breed seeds. One of our main thrust in terms of the product range is pasture as it complements animal nutrition,” he said.
Mr Mugadza noted that since 2005 Zimbabwe has lost over US$60 million worth of cattle, that alone was bleeding the nation and they were working out to make sure that all the livestock farmers they are involved with also partake in pasture production.
“This complements the other nutritional value needed by the livestock, pasture production is a low cost on farm feed production which cannot be compared to commercial feeds which sometimes tend to be expensive for most people in the rural areas. Hence, our method assists them grow feed at low cost,” added Mr Mugadza.
He said the company has partnered with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement and they were fully supporting the Ministry with their current Pfumvudza/ Intwasa programme as well as for livestock with the core pasture Intwasa or fodder bags.
Mr Mugadza said they were also supplying the pasture seed to the Ministry and have so far delivered to GMB depots across Matabeleland North and South. Plans are already there to move to deliver to Midlands, Masvingo and Manicaland.
In terms of vegetables, he said: “We offer the best as we have every vegetable seed in the market but our main thrust is working with farmers and we have a network of agro-preneurs that are based in every Ward, District, Province and community to offer farmers with extension services. At the same time, we also work together with Agritex to make sure that farmers are wholly assisted.”
Mr Mugadza said to support the good genetic that is within their products, they have partnered with various entities in implementing input supplies. He added farmers need supportive fertiliser, crop chemicals even chemicals for livestock to help them realise a lot from their harvest and livestock. He said they were working on expanding to onion and other products.
Mr Mugadza said they had a full-time support scheme that works round the clock to assist farmers with Easi Seeds email being [email protected] and contact number 0719193561.
