services and products
eMKambo Consultancy
Market-oriented consultancy and research services to businesses and organisations involved in agriculture and value chain industries.
Agric-Markets Value Chain Analysis
We provide whole range of goods and services necessary for an agricultural product to move from the farm to the final customer or consumer.
eMKambo Perishable finance
eMKambo offers a range of agriculture loans for traders in the Market to meet the cost of working capital and allied activities.
Agric- Content Generation and Software Development
eMKambo have a highly qualified team which works on creating and maintaining agriculture related web, mobile and desktop applications.
Knowledge Centre
Creating and managing agricultural knowledge resources, including the analysis and modelling of diverse data sets relevant to management of the produce markets.
eMKambo Bulk SMS
Assists agric- value chain actors e.g input suppliers, agro dealers, buyers of commodities, transporters among other service provides to broadcast messages to facilitate their business.
eMKambo Call Centre
Comprises of 16 mobiles lines (Econet, Telecel and Netone) used to inform various value chain players about agricultural markets status.
Mobile Application
The mobile application avails to share agriculture information and knowledge (content) through mobile smart phones.
About Us
The word Mkambo refers to market in isiNdebele language. It has the same connotation in the Shona language though in Shona, the word Musika commonly refers to the market One of the challenges facing Zimbabwean agriculture and rural development is lack of reliable, usable and timely information, evidence and knowledge for effective decision making. A significant part of the available information is either out-dated or dispersed in various institutions, people and environments. When projects and programmes by various NGOs, private sector players and other development organisations come to an end, in most instances, there is no clear mechanism for the knowledge that was gathered to be handed over and inform new initiatives. In addition, competition rather than collaboration among organisations in the same sector works against knowledge sharing.
Management Team
CHARLES DHEWA
Clever mukove
Tafadzwa Makumbe
Latest news
When data and evidence become currency
Most of the information disseminated to African smallholder farmers and rural marginalized entrepreneurs is barely enough for progressive decision making. In most cases where price information for a particular commodity is provided, critical details are missing and these include diverse sources of the commodity, levels of competition, demand cycles and the type of people who[…]
Why value chain actors should identify their most critical knowledge
From all the training, guidance and ideas directed at poor and marginalized farmers, it is often difficult for these actors to determine the most critical knowledge. As a result there is usually confusion between what is urgent and what is important. While the most important knowledge for smallholder farmers can be on how to enter[…]
How the market can convert agricultural commodities into career pipelines
Besides climate change and environmental degradation, a major challenge facing many African rural communities is migration of skills and talent to urban centres. There is no price for guessing who wins in the competition for talent between rural and urban communities. Building rural agricultural markets is one way of converting agricultural commodities and value chains[…]
Moving decision making closer to points of impact and knowledge
In most developing countries, decisions that affect farmers and rural communities are often made by policy makers and development agencies who do not reside in those communities. However, digital technologies are revealing the benefits and possibilities of improving the quality of services by moving decision-making to where impact is felt. For instance, using mobile phones[…]
How external expertise can undermine local community knowledge
Many rural communities in developing countries are now more familiar with external experts and consultants who visit them to ask questions about their situation and go away never to be seen again. Using consultants and external experts to gather information or conduct evaluations is not an entirely bad idea. Outsiders can sometimes better see what[…]
Why everyone should pay attention to knowledge life cycles
If you did not know that knowledge has a life cycle you are not alone. However, that should not be a consolation. Effectively managing knowledge begins with realizing that knowledge has a life cycle. Just as each valuable commodity has a life cycle, knowledge has a life cycle especially in the current knowledge economy. To[…]
How niche markets influence agricultural commodity prices
One of the most persistent myths in African agriculture is that commodity prices are set by traders, negatively referred to as ‘middlemen’. Paying lip service to understanding market dynamics has seen most interventions designed to get rid of ‘middlemen’ failing dismally. Working with agriculture markets for the past years has opened eMKambo’s eyes to the[…]
Translating common sense into agribusiness models
Knowledge generation and sharing has been happening in every community since time immemorial. However, there has not been enough recognition of the way knowledge is structured from individual knowledge to household knowledge to community knowledge and to inter-community knowledge sharing. The way most African communities engage with knowledge is different from academic learning where one[…]
Increasing odds of success through characterizing value chain actors
A fine-grained view of agricultural opportunities in most developing countries can result from better characterization of value chain actors such as farmers. In addition to revealing interdependencies between value chain actors, a nuanced understanding of African agriculture can foster dynamic resource allocation. However, accurate farmer characterization remains a pain in the Palahuru for financiers and[…]
eMKambo Masterclasses – First Session
As agricultural niches become congested and highly competitive, evidence-based decision making has never been so important. It is against these trends that eMKambo (www.emkambo.co.zw) will be conducting a series of master classes to answer the following questions: How can farmers and other value chain actors set prices for their commodities without passing through a complex[…]