Business Reporters
Greenyard Farming, a local agro concern involved in the construction of green houses targets to place more than 20 hectares of land under greenhouses to produce mainly four horticultural products for the Middle East market where the company has clinched marketing contracts. The company is pooling together horticulture farmers, most of whom are its clients, under its label to reach the hectarage required to consistently satisfy the marketing contracts for value added horticulture products.
Greenyard’s managing director Mr Ali Maulani was recently in Iran and the Middle East countries where he clinched the marketing rights.
He said that there is a huge market for Zimbabwean horticulture products.
“We are targeting the Middle East and they want all horticultural products produced here. Basically we are looking at cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, pepper and these are the four major crops that are in demand,” said Mr Maulani.
“At the moment we are trying to group all our clients so that we become one central point whereby all their crops will be exported through our name as the marketing agent,” said Mr Maulani.
Greenyard is concentrating on four crops; cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes and pepper.
“We set up the greenhouse for the client, provide after sales services and agronomy services. We also promote and market for our clients so that they capitalise on synergies. We will train people working in the greenhouse till the end of the crop and we will be supervising on weekly basis. We provide a full package,” said Mr Maulani.
“If we pool together our clients Greenyard’s that might provide us with the right hectarage so that we can safely supply the Asian market throughout the year.”
The package comes with a water system for drip irrigation and other fittings and the plants.
Mr Maulani was speaking at the launch of a 3 000 square-metre greenhouse in Hatfield. The gigantic agricultural infrastructure has capacity to hold about 14 000 tomatoes plants.
Greenyard agronomist Mr Wakefield Matora said the plants produce a minimum of 20kg of tomatoes per plant in the eight-nine months lifespan. This translates to about 280 tonnes of tomatoes for the eight-nine months.
Because of its vast experience in the construction of greenhouses, the company was contracted by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to construct greenhouses at the designated Export Processing Zones.
Greenyard Farming was incorporated in 2004 but started operations in 2009. Among some of the projects the company has undertaken is a 10 hectare project with Interfoods another with RBZ on its export processing zone in Matepatepa, among many other projects dotted around the country.
The company is also considering venturing into value addition and beneficiation in line with the economic blueprint, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic Transformation.
“We are trying to come up with a plant for value addition and beneficiation of the crops before export. We are also thinking of having an abattoir for poultry projects,” said Mr Matora.