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
Mastering the benefits of adding value to agricultural commodities
Like many well-intentioned phrases, ‘value addition’ is not just an expression. It is a practice whose dynamics are yet to be fully understood and embedded, especially in African agriculture. More than 80 percent of agricultural commodities in developing countries are consumed in a raw state. Lack of modern value addition technology makes it difficult to[…]
From Corporate Social Responsibility to Sustainable Agribusiness Modelling
The failure of donor-funded programmes to transform African agriculture is resulting in more attention turning to the private sector as a potential source of better agricultural outcomes. Several multi-million dollar donor programmes have been launched with pomp and media saturation but the end has often not been as loud as the beginning. At the end[…]
How the market can inform better farmer characterization
In a rapidly changing knowledge economy, it no longer makes sense to continue characterizing farmers in developing countries by the size of land on which they produce agricultural commodities. Informal agriculture markets provide various ways through which African farmers can be characterized beyond the smallholder, communal, commercial and other forms which are becoming inadequate. For[…]
How developing countries over-rate foreign currency
Many African developing countries have a deliberate bias towards exports in the hope that this can bring foreign currency that is expected to stimulate economic development. However, it seems foreign currency is a preserve of the elite who have developed a taste for foreign toys like large vehicles, expensive furniture, clothes, wine and other expressions[…]
Using market evidence to protect smallholder farmers from price variability
That most African smallholder farmers can produce enough commodities for household consumption and surplus for the market is now beyond question. The majority of committed farmers have mastered the art of producing almost any commodity. What remains outside their control are market dynamics such as prices as well as supply and demand trends. The situation[…]
The power of knowledge retention in farming and rural communities
In addition absence of appropriate information at the right time, lack of knowledge retention mechanisms is a big challenge for African farming and rural communities. Unfortunately most resources continue to be directed at the dissemination of ideas from policy makers and development actors. As a result many development interventions remain projects at the end of[…]
Knowledge-driven ways to assess the socio-economic impact of agricultural interventions
Measuring the authentic impact of development interventions remains a big challenge for many development organizations and governments, mainly in developing countries. Terms like Value for Money (VfM) and Social Return on Investment (SROI) are being mentioned repeatedly as organizations try to ascertain the value of millions of dollars that continue to go towards development. While[…]
When old knowledge prevent adoption of new socio-economic practices
One of the dominant facets of colonization is visible in the structure of African formal food industries. Many African countries are stuck with infrastructure designed for supporting manufacturing of a few agricultural commodities, mainly for the export market. Such commodities include maize, beef, coffee, tea, cocoa, soya bean, tobacco and wheat. The biggest mistake by[…]
Making sense of differences between communicating evidence and facilitating its use
Besides promoting linear ways of communicating information, most efforts by policy makers and development agencies in Africa continue to confuse dissemination of evidence with facilitating its use. Instead of speeding up the adoption of new knowledge, social media is also generating noise which gets in the way of adoption. If they were facilitating adoption and[…]
Key elements of market – informed agribusiness Models
Like all businesses, agribusinesses should be built around a product/service and a niche market. Ideally, more products and services spawn more business models with some models eventually becoming separate business units. When that happens, it becomes easy to assess the viability of each business model. Contrary to some beliefs, in a business model, money is[…]