Introduction of Fruit Vision blueberries in Zimbabwe

Clarence Mwale likes to lead the way and the new partnership he has forged with a Zimbabwean businessman in the UK has added fuel to his fire. Together they have created a new company, KUMINDA, and have just completed their packaging plant in Harare. This year they will continue to pack mainly peas (a better pea season is expected), but in the coming years they will also pack their own blueberries here.

Of the 60 employees at the new KUMINDA packaging plant in Harare, 90% are women.

KUMINDA (meaning in the fields in the Shona language) has signed an agreement to obtain exclusive rights to blueberries from Dutch producer Fruit Vision, which will be the first to establish in Zimbabwe. It is set to maximize Zimbabwe’s already huge lead when it becomes the only country in the southern hemisphere (and the world) to grow blueberries from January.

“We visited Onubafruit in Spain and saw what they do with cooperatives. We saw that a blueberry plantation can be owned by many families, even hundreds of families, who then employ professionals to manage the business. It is a different model than what we have in Zimbabwe right now,” he explains.

“Imagine varieties of blueberries that you can harvest twice a year: it will be huge”
KUMINDA will be the first to bring capital-intensive blueberries to smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe; The country’s opportunity at that time of year is too good to benefit only large blueberry producers, often multinationals.

Right: KUMINDA export peas

“Blueberries are not viable for a small farmer until they receive significant help. It will take time, but I have no doubt it can happen. The Dutch varieties can give us two harvests a year. We can manipulate them to harvest at a time that suits us “The current varieties are the earliest in the southern hemisphere – it’s a huge position for Zimbabwe. So imagine when we bring in varieties that can be harvested twice – it will be huge.”

Furthermore, he says, while blueberry growers in Zimbabwe produce an average of 30 tonnes per hectare, these varieties can produce up to 65 tonnes.

Zimbabwe’s blueberry farmers have learned a lot over the past five years of growing the crop. KUMINDA is looking for strategic partnerships to introduce and even manage blueberries.

“We can grow directly in the ground instead of in pots, or in a trench filled with growing medium in high-density plantings. We have been studying this. I think that in the case of blueberries, our biggest competitor is Peru and not South Africa , and we want to take advantage of our advantage as much as possible.”

Not only from a business point of view but also from the love for Zimbabwe.
Mwale has a career that originated in compliance and audit, with a natural transition into production and marketing, with a significant tilt.

“We are really dedicated to providing opportunities to small and medium scale farmers. Not only from a business point of view, but also from the love of Zimbabwe. We like to give them a fair opportunity to participate in global trade.”

To achieve a critical mass that influences the export vegetables (peas, green beans, baby corn, sweet corn, among others) grown for KUMINDA during the summer by its small and medium-sized farmers, as well as to distribute the risk, contacted several experienced Zimbabwean vegetable exporters, including Selby Enterprises and Zimflex, to contribute to their large programmes.

Minimal use of pesticides in small-scale Zimbabwean agriculture
“We believe that this year we will have a better pea season. Guatemala will not produce as much, Kenya is out (with the recent floods), Egypt is already finished. Some, who previously bought in Kenya, have no other place to get after the floods I think “Which, in addition to the demand, is also due to the natural taste of our products and our better quality. We are growing on land that was left fallow, we have less pesticides and we have low MRLs.”

Zimbabwe’s vegetable growers have a very good track record on residue levels. “We stopped farming for about twenty years. The pests have not developed as much resistance as in South Africa and Kenya. We have actually never had an outbreak of thrips or pests, mainly because we have not been as active in intensive agriculture as we have. has been South Africa.

He notes that the availability of cheap counterfeit pesticides is much lower in Zimbabwe than in more populated countries like Kenya.

“Most small farmers cannot afford to buy pesticides. It is easier to manage our farms. Our small farmers rarely use herbicides, much less than in Kenya or South Africa. They prefer manual weeding instead of herbicides.”

He observes: “I don’t know if people recognize that advantage after what we’ve been through as a country, but it’s a good position. One of the reasons we like to work with small farmers is their minimal contribution. “Due to the economic situation “When you teach them something, they do it well because they know their lives depend on it.”

They are all literate, he notes, and maintain fumigation and fertilizer records, as required by the GLOBALG.AP SMETA accreditation of their exporting farmers.

“We’ve covered a lot of ground and this is just the beginning,” he says. “With the packing house we have built in Harare, it will provide huge opportunities for willing smallholder farmers.”

For more information:
Clarence Mwale
KUMINDA
Telephone: +263 77 292 9941
Email: [email protected]
https://www.kuminda.net/