Posted on Jun 11, 2012
HARARE - Zimbabwean youth entrepreneur, Simbarashe Mhungu
(31), a nominee for U.S. President’s Innovation Summit and Mentoring
Partnership for Young African Leaders and is focused on leveraging U.S.
technological advances in the agro-processing sector. He says the U.S. should up its support for
small scale farmers in Zimbabwe.
“The current focus of the United States government of
promoting sustainable agriculture with a focus on the small scale farmers is
the right one for Africa. I think
Zimbabwe probably has the best platform for that growth on the continent
because we have small scale farmers with scalable skill-sets and relatively
decent agro-processing supply chain infrastructure,” said Mhungu, founder and
managing director of Harvest Fresh.
Harvest Fresh specializes in agribusiness and food
processing. The company was founded in 1993 as BonneZim Private Limited and
employed 1,500 Zimbabweans directly and 2,000 indirectly before it filed for
bankruptcy in October 2011. Until 2010,
BonneZim was the single largest exporter of processed green beans to the
European Union from Zimbabwe, with revenues in excess of $7 million annually.
“Through my
subsidiary, Harvest Fresh, I bought the firm out of bankruptcy in October 2011
with the aim of restructuring its business model to fit the new global
agro-processing paradigm,” said the young entrepreneur. “Its core business will
continue to be that of supplying exotic vegetables and fruits to local and
export markets but with an added focus on world class value addition and the
integration of the small scale farmer.”
The former Victoria
Falls Safari Lodge management trainee studied business at Howard University in
Washington, D.C. He worked at Walt
Disney Company and later joined Goldman Sachs where he was responsible for
managing 12 hedge fund relationships with assets of two billion dollars. Mhungu also helped structure several private
equity transactions in Southern Africa.
“Working in the
financial services industry gave me a deep window into what is happening in the
global economy in terms of money flows and opportunities,” says Mhungu. “(While
at Goldman Sachs) I saw the amount of investment that was going into
agriculture and agro-processing in South America, some parts of Africa and in
Asia…when I looked at that equation vis a vis the population growth, the growth
in our needs for food security, and the availability of land in which to grow
this, I saw there was a mismatch.”
Sixty percent of the world’s arable land is in Africa, yet
Africa is a net importer of food!” he notes.
“The growth is going to come from this continent…so I
thought that in my lifetime that (food importation) can change. Even if I can play a small part in that, I
think it will be helpful in allowing that equation to balance. Hopefully this
will also encouraging others to come and invest in a sector which I feel truly
has amazing potential,” he says. ZimPAS
Courtesy of http://www.entrepreneurshipafrica.com
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