Zimbabwe’s seeds of hope

When Charlene Mathonsi graduated with an animal science degree from the University of Zimbabwe in 2008, she had little idea she’d end up co-founding a thriving flower-seed export business that’s helping rural farmers in her country make ends meet.

Amalubarina Flowers, which she established with the help of her neighbour Douglas Alexander, has helped about 1,000 small-scale farmers across Zimbabwe escape dire poverty thanks to seed exports that are sold across the world. Central to the success of the project is the close partnership Mathonsi has forged with Alexander, whose career in agriculture was almost cut short by Zimbabwe’s disastrous land reform programme of the early 2000s.

“I like to call it restoring economic dignity,” Mathonsi tells the FM about Amalubarina’s impact across rural Zimbabwe. “You can imagine if suddenly a particular rural area gets an injection of $30,000 in payouts over the course of a year — money that wasn’t there before — how it can change the entire setting. You could literally see individual households changing for the better. Things were happening before my eyes and I realised this programme was actually doing something really good.”

Like so many successful entrepreneurial endeavours, Amalubarina Flowers, was born of necessity. After her graduation Mathonsi returned to Lion Farm, the family property on the outskirts of Kadoma, a small mining town in central Zimbabwe, fully intent on using her academic knowledge to launch a career in agriculture.

At the time, however, the economy was still reeling from the impact of land reform, a chaotic process that led to scores of white commercial farmers — and their workers — being evicted from their land. Zimbabwe’s commercial agricultural sector collapsed in the immediate aftermath, taking the valuable foreign exchange it earned along with it. The Zimbabwean dollar soon went into free fall, stoking Weimar Republic-like hyperinflation that eventually became so severe that the government infamously resorted to printing Z$100-trillion notes to keep up with rapidly rising prices.

However, by 2009 the money-printing gambit reached a nadir. With hyperinflation rendering the currency worthless, the state stopped printing it altogether. The result was the complete demonetisation of the Zimbabwean dollar and the adoption of foreign currency — mostly US dollars — as the only viable medium of exchange.

So, despite being armed with a degree in agriculture, Mathonsi’s foray into the sector was stymied by an economic climate that made commercial farming near impossible. Agricultural inputs were in short supply and access to finance virtually nonexistent.

“Before land reform, farmers could borrow money using their title deeds as collateral,” says Mathonsi, now 39. “After land reform, title deeds were worthless, so borrowing became very difficult. The result was that, as a young, black, aspiring female farmer with a degree in agriculture, I had no access to capital — and farming is very hard when you have to do it with your own money.”

As fate would have it, help came in the form of 74-year-old Alexander, who was trying to solve a dilemma of his own. He’d lost his farm in 2007 thanks to land reform and, with it, his main source of income. Fortunately, he had a good relationship with the neighbouring Mathonsi family, who suggested he move his workers and remaining equipment to Lion Farm.

“My parents were getting old, and we weren’t really doing much on the farm at the time. In fact, we were in trouble, so Doug was a life saver,” says Mathonsi. “I became the family representative who worked with him. I was basically learning how to be a farmer from Doug, who had over 30 years’ experience.”

Coming into bloom

But transitioning to Lion Farm presented its own agrarian challenges. Alexander was accustomed to working on an irrigated commercial farm that operated across two cropping seasons. Lion Farm had no irrigation at all, so any crops planted on it were completely reliant on rainfall. That limited the available crop options as he and Mathonsi tried to figure out how to turn Lion Farm into a viable commercial entity despite the bleak economic climate.

Some options were quickly ruled out. The Mathonsis had previously tried dairy farming with little success, and while mangos and avocados thrived, Zimbabwe’s shaky electricity supply made it too expensive to set up reliable cold storage facilities. The sorghum grown on Lion Farm was also needed to feed the family’s cattle, a key source of income.

Food crops such as maize also presented difficulties due to the presence of korokozas — the illegal gold miners who stalk the mineral rich countryside around Kadoma. Though the area has fertile soil and a subtropical climate, the presence of these artisanal miners — who operate much like zama zamas do in South Africa — made planting food crops risky, as any produce was prone to theft.

Growing food crops such as maize also legally compels farmers to sell their harvest to the state-owned Grain Marketing Board (GMB), a body that often doesn’t have sufficient US dollars to pay farmers in full. An export crop was thus preferable, as it would provide ready access to foreign exchange.

The only snag was that any such crop needed to be cultivated at scale without the need for an irrigation system and the large capital investment that came with it. Fortunately, Alexander had previously been among the handful of commercial farmers who’d been involved in the early days of Zimbabwe’s flower-seed export industry.

The industry was first established in the country by a Czech immigrant family, the Homolkas, who had settled in what was then Rhodesia in the 1950s. Rina Homolka, the family matriarch, became a key figure in its development, eventually passing on her knowledge to several commercial farmers across Zimbabwe.

One of the beneficiaries of that knowledge was Alexander, who still had an offtake agreement with a company in Harare. It, in turn, had the necessary export licences and contacts with a major Netherlands-based flower-seed distributor. And so, Amalubarina Flowers — a cognate of amaluba (the Ndebele word for flowers) and Rina (Homolka) — was born.

The fledgling company’s first crop of zinnias, cosmos and marigolds was planted in fields alongside the main road between Kadoma and the town of Kwekwe. Soon, passing motorists began stopping to view the blooming fields.

One of them was Simba Mabonga, who came from the rural areas around Nkayi. Passing by Kadoma one day in 2010 he stopped to inquire about the possibility of growing flowers in his home village.

“He said he had relationships with about 40 potential growers in the Nkayi and Gokwe areas, so Doug and I thought we’d give it a try,” explains Mathonsi.

Having seen the potential in the blooming flowers, and with Amalubarina’s buy-in, Mabonga started a pilot project with small-scale growers around Nkayi. In time, the project became so successful that Amalubarina began expanding into other rural areas such as Gokwe.

A little more than a decade later, Mathonsi and Alexander have relationships with more than 1,000 outgrowers across rural Zimbabwe. It’s also a win for the small-scale farmers, who are able to use the proceeds from their seed sales to supplement their main food crop, maize.

A microcosm of collapse

The entire Amalubarina endeavour goes to the heart of the complexities that have arisen in the wake of Zimbabwe’s post land reform collapse and the economy’s subsequent dollarisation in 2009. While the country’s commodity exporters — miners in particular — are usually able to access a ready supply of US dollars, ordinary people are often forced to transact in RTGS (real-time gross settlement), the government’s latest attempt to revive the Zimbabwean dollar.

Given the constant shortage of foreign exchange, the RTGS exchange rate constantly fluctuates on the black market as people try to get their hands on dollars, which still serves as the preferred currency. And, with many people having lost their life’s savings when the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed, there is still deep distrust of any attempts to revive the local currency. As a consequence, they would rather be paid in US dollars, especially as transactions in RTGS are often settled digitally on mobile phones rather than in physical cash.

Outside illicit gold mining, there are limited options available to access hard currency in rural Zimbabwe. Farmers are required by law to sell their cash crops — typically maize, cotton or tobacco — to the state-run agricultural marketing boards such as the GMB or the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco).

The problem is that payments from GMB and Cottco are typically settled in a mix of US dollars and RTGS — with the split fluctuating in tandem with the availability of forex. Last year, for example, 70% was paid in RTGS, with the remainder settled in US currency. By April 2023, the dollar ratio of farmers’ payments had improved to 40% but that still meant 60% of their payments were settled in the unfavoured RTGS.

While Cottco and GMB paid farmers well in the 1990s, Mathonsi says Zimbabwe’s current economic situation means they sometimes resort to paying farmers in household goods such as soap, cooking oil or sugar.

“To me that is a problem as it reduces people in rural areas to the status of children,” says Mathonsi. “Give people their pay and let them choose what they want to do with the money they earned.”

The practice of paying farmers in household goods has also meant they sometimes hold back a portion of their crops in secret to either sell illegally for US dollars or to barter among themselves. However, this rural barter economy is characterised by severe price inefficiency as it’s often not clear how many buckets of maize equate to a bar of soap or a kilogram of sugar. When times are tough farmers sometimes end up bartering away their food crop for basic necessities, which can put their families’ food security at risk.

Mathonsi says this has seen many small-scale farmers turn to Amalubarina to access the US dollar income it provides. It’s also transformed much of the agricultural landscape in places such as Gokwe and Nkayi, as fields of zinnias, marigolds and cosmos gradually replace cotton as the preferred cash crop.

“What we realised over time is that rural farmers were approaching us to grow flowers because it helped safeguard their main food crop, which in Zimbabwe is usually maize,” says Mathonsi. “Because the seeds are effectively a US dollar-based crop it means they can save their maize crop for food and use the money from seed sales to buy other essentials.”

In some instances, growers are now earning sufficient revenue from seed sales to buy cattle and upgrade their residences.

Overcoming the hurdles

Still, the Amalubarina programme is not without difficulties. One of the main challenges, Mathonsi says, is the risk of cross-contamination of cultivars.

To prevent that, Amalubarina’s growing programme is structured to ensure that different flower varieties are grown in different geographical areas. While villages are typically supplied with cosmos, zinnias and marigold, each receives only a single subvariety. This prevents different seed varieties getting mixed up in the same batches.

Growers are constituted into groups of 40-50 people who report to a field officer — essentially an elected community leader — responsible for overseeing production. Mathonsi explains that, because these rural communities are often part of the same extended family, this helps promote trust and co-operation. Each field officer is also incentivised through a commission structure, meaning the more each individual grower produces, the higher his or her commission.

“If a particular farmer performs badly then so does the group leader,” explains Mathonsi. “It incentivises the group leader to make sure their growers are constantly monitored and evaluated, but also to be strict in terms of who is allowed to become a grower. You don’t want the group leader allowing his uncle or cousin into the growing group if they don’t produce.”

Mathonsi and her team usually begin distributing seeds to growers in early December, with farmers typically planting from the middle of that month through to early January, a period that coincides with Zimbabwe’s summer rains. Flowers tend to bloom in April or May, with picking commencing in July.

“I then go out to bag and weigh the seeds in September and the farmers usually get paid in early November,” says Mathonsi. “The payment period is fairly long but the farmers have been very understanding, partly because I think it’s really their only access to US dollars. The more effort they put in, the better their germination and purity results, which means more income earned.”

The going price for zinnia seeds is $3/kg with cosmos earning $3.50/kg and marigolds $4/kg. Before any payments are made, however, the seed batches have to undergo a presorting and quality control process, which is handled in Harare by Baytab Enterprises, under the stewardship of John Lewis.

Another early pioneer of Zimbabwe’s flower-seed export industry, Lewis oversees the complex export process. Having previously operated a seed-cleaning facility in Chegutu — yet another casualty of land reform — Lewis also plays a key role in helping small-scale flower growers remove impurities from their seed batches before export.

Where growers previously resorted to using mosquito netting sourced from NGOs to remove contaminants such as twigs and pebbles, Baytab Enterprises now manufactures and distributes steel mesh screens to assist them. These are particularly useful in removing the barbed seeds of the blackjack — a weed banned in many offshore jurisdictions.

“Flower growing by the small-scale farming sector has actually done surprisingly well,” says Lewis. “In the Gokwe area ... flower crops are really the only crops that have survived from year to year. It’s working for the farmers and they’re making money out of it.”

Lewis also distributes fresh stock seeds to farmers to ensure the genetic vigour that’s critical if the flowers are to retain their bright colours. After overseeing the weighing and quality control process, he then ships the seeds to the Netherlands where they are delivered to Hem Zaden BV, a 103-year-old family-run business located near Amsterdam.

Hem Zaden sells about 400t-500t of flower seeds a year across global markets, roughly a third of which originates in Africa — primarily from Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

“The outgrower model has been very successful,” Hem Zaden BV production director Maarten Singer tells the FM. “It gives people an economic purpose and the better they grow the more cash they get.”

The company has been active in Africa since the 1960s, particularly in Tanzania, where the small-scale outgrower model was pioneered by Dutch expats. While Singer believes there are other parts of Africa suitable for flower production, he says having reliable contacts on the ground with the requisite production and export knowledge is critical.

“You also don’t want to give farmers unrealistic expectations because there’s only so much seed that the world uses,” he cautions.

For the moment Amalubarina continues to expand its list of small-scale growers, who produce only about 20 of the 3,500 flower varieties sold by Hem Zaden. Yet lack of finance remains an issue for the company, which still operates without an irrigation system on Lion Farm, thanks largely to interest rates on dollar-denominated loans being as high as 12% in Zimbabwe.

While that rules out any major capital investment on the farm for the foreseeable future Mathonsi remains optimistic. She’s now looking at adding bee-keeping to the Amalubarina business model and has already sent a group of field officers on a training course, which has resulted in several hives being set up adjacent to their flower fields.

“Because we do flowers it just makes sense to add honey — it adds a different source of income,” she says. “In five years, I’d like to see every one of our farmers with a beehive in their flower fields.”