MBABANE – Professor Mike Matsebula, Chairman of NAMBoard, has announced positive progress in the agribusiness for the kingdom of Eswatini.
According to Matsebula, who now has 3 years’ experience as chairman of the National Agricultural Marketing Board, a number of success stories and achievements have been noted including the first of its kind Cold Chain Summit in Eswatini.
Matsebula has since disclosed that other notable achievement is the Sdemane Farming Project, a business subsidiary of NAMBoard, with strategic focus to exploit and grow the export market.
Revealing this in the 2019/2020 Annual Report, Matsebula stated that the element of growing markets is very key to stimulating growth in local businesses on the basis that the country has a relatively smaller population.
He said growing export markets is important to attracting foreign currency for the country.
This, he said, will also boost the livelihoods of farmers already in commercial agriculture.
“The ability of the country to have more export markets creates big interests for investors to open investments or businesses in the country. NAMBoard in this space has fared very well in retaining and acquiring export markets within the SADC region and overseas,” he said.
Speaking about opportunities for investments in agriculture and agro-foods, the professor said understanding the agro-food industry has made him believe that the market can never go extinct for this sector as long as there are human beings.
He said striking a good balance with innovations in the changing patterns of people taste or preferences to food will always guarantee a market in this sector.
“Worth noting, the country imports agro-foods to the value of over a billion emalangeni a year to reflect a gap on local production capacity,” he said.
He continued: “The local sourcing programme has continued to show positive feedback and growth in the country. The commitment of markets to support local farmers and distributors has enabled the value chains for local produce to be sustainable for business. Farmers are also growing in scale and in capacity to produce quality products in required market specifications. This initiative gradually grows local capacity to replace imported produce,”
Furthermore, Matsebula says stakeholders play a very big role in all endeavors of NAMBoard in delivering on her mandate.
He said through the stakeholder engagement, the organization has managed to bridge the gap for government to engage with the private sector to stimulate economic growth.
He said NAMBoard stakeholders include commercial farmers, distributors, agro-food processors, traders and retailers, as well as government through the ministry of agriculture and related departments.
“On behalf of the Board, I extend my appreciation to the Minister for Agriculture in entrusting the organization to execute the function of market facilitation for the purpose of agricultural growth in the country.
We believe the dedication of staff and management showed over the years will continue to make the organization the success that it is today and going forward. Their effort can never goes unnoticed for each and every role in the organization,” he said..
