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
Empowering communities to evaluate their knowledge
eMKambo is increasingly meeting rural communities that have been schooled into valuing tangible assets like dams and tractors at the expense of intangible assets like knowledge on how to earn more value from those assets. In agricultural communities where assets like irrigation schemes and roads have been built or rehabilitated, people are still unsure how[…]
How ecosystems are replacing value chains in African food systems
Instead on choosing a few value chains in which to specialize, some agribusinesses in developing countries are being compelled to embrace an ecosystems approach to agriculture. This is because each commodity has its limits. Many contract farming models are collapsing as value chains evolve into ecosystems where different agricultural commodities either complement or substitute each[…]
The role of data in accelerating agricultural transformation
The capacity of data to accelerate agricultural transformation in developing countries is no longer questionable. However, a remaining challenge is limited capacity to set systems for continuous data collection. Without that capacity, it is difficult for policy makers to put in place a set of coherent building blocks for delivering tangible value to farmers, consumers[…]
The curse of forgetting useful information and knowledge
eMKambo recently heard a story of how a veterinary doctor surprised livestock farmers when he told them he did not have the expertise to artificially inseminate their cattle. The farmers had travelled from distant areas to come and witness the first scientific experiment in the history of their rural farming community. There is no shortage[…]
Market information and knowledge as therapy
When farmers who have spent years looking for satisfactory answers to their challenges finally get a solution, such a moment of truth becomes a moment of healing. A different feeling often embraces farmers when they finally discover that agriculture markets are always in a random walk such that price is just one part of a[…]
Slow knowledge and fast knowledge in African Agriculture
While African countries neglect their informal economies in planning and policy development, the informal sector provides several avenues of looking at knowledge. One of these avenues is the relationship between slow and fast knowledge. Commodities flowing into informal markets from farming areas reveal the extent to which slow and fast knowledge have distinct characteristics. Slow[…]
Making sense of differences between evidence and experience
While there is an increase in emphasis on evidence-based policy, evidence-based medicine and evidence-based this and that, people’s collective experiences may be more powerful than evidence alone. If African agriculture and rural development relied solely on evidence without people’s tangible experiences, most development initiatives would not achieve much. Evidence in the form of facts and[…]
Using evidence to articulate grassroots concerns and opportunities
If concerns and opportunities of people living at the grassroots of developing countries are to be fully understood, evidence gathering tools have to go beyond questionnaires and other techniques designed in the English language. To the extent that facts and figures represent the hardware, in most grassroots communities, feelings and opinions represent the software which[…]
Using feedback to stabilize growth and expand opportunities
For every US$500 million that has goes into agricultural production in Africa, another US$500 million is not injected into the market in order to stimulate demand for what is produced. As a results, gluts continue to alternate with shortages of commodities. A major reason is lack of investment in gathering and re-using fluid evidence. Monitoring[…]
Recognizing the role of feminine traits in local economies
Another way of increasing the relevance of International Women’s Day which is celebrated on the 8th of March every year is to notice and reflect on how female traits and values play out at grassroots level. If it wasn’t for the presence of feminine traits like empathy, humility, intuition, flexibility, inclusiveness, generosity, balance and patience,[…]