Extension officers get training on digital marketing – The Herald

Extension officers get training on digital marketing

Agriculture Reporter

WITH Government pulling out all stops to promote the adoption of market driven agricultural production, the Zimbabwe Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Services (ZAKIS) has moved to partner the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) in training extension officers on digital marketing.

In an interview the AMA marketing and economic researcher Mr Gerald Mashiri said the training programmes was meant to equip extension officers with agricultural and digital marketing skills, which they would in turn impart to farmers.

“Producing without a market has been a norm in the country, but through the ZAKIS project, we are able to do capacity building for the extension officers,” said Mr Mashiri.

The training programmes are being carried out in Mashonaland West and Matabeleland South provinces.

“The specific objective of the programme is to demonstrate a farmer centric and integrated research-education-extension framework that establishes a market-oriented rural agricultural sector production,” said Mr Mashiri.

The initiative comes at a time the agriculture industry is experiencing robust growth and transformation driven by Government programmes.

Market driven extension can be created by equipping small-scale farmers with market intelligence and data so that they strike a balance between produce volumes and market uptake.

“It is important for our farmers to do market-oriented production to realise aspirations of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) and take advantage of viable production platforms such as contract farming that offer market guarantees for farmers,” said Mr Mashiri.

“In line with Government’s thrust of having development partners and other stakeholders working together, we are grateful to ZAKIS for partnering AMA in doing the capacity building programmes,” said Mr Mashiri.

“The initiative brings together public and private institutions with a focus on improving farmers’ productivity and incomes through the delivery of well-researched modern knowledge and extension.”

The overall objective of ZAKIS is to enable farmers and value chain actors to improve their livelihoods and contribute to agricultural growth and rural green-economic development.

AMA is responsible for product mapping to curb the problem of uncoordinated production models and lack of market information that haunted farmers.

“Our mandate as AMA is to provide market access for products under cultivation at these community gardens,” said Mr Mashiri.

AMA recently embarked on farmer capacity building initiatives in community gardens where farmers are being trained on good agricultural practices and production of crops with an identified market to guarantee farmers access to specific and well-defined markets.

“Commendable progress has been recorded by the authority in facilitating penetration of products from farmers into the market,” said Mr Mashiri.