The Steward Bank has in conjunction with businesses under Cassava Smartech Zimbabwe launched “AgroFuture,” an agribusiness product.
The companies under Cassava Smartech which are partaking in the product are EcoCash, EcoSure, Vaya, Moovah and EcoFarmer.
The product is aimed at providing tailor-made solutions to the specific needs of the agriculture value chain.
Announcing the AgroFuture product on Wednesday, Steward Bank chief executive officer, Mr Courage Mashavave, underscored the need to boost productivity in agriculture to ensure food security. He said:
Agriculture and food security are at the core of basic survival for the general populace across the country, hence support of agribusiness activities will certainly have a great economic and social impact.
Our product will offer solutions focused on enhancing agricultural production by providing access to finance and key innovations to farmers, rural agro-dealers, aggregators and manufacturing companies.
The product is launched when the country is facing severe starvation following a series of poor farming seasons.
Zimbabwe, once a breadbasket of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) now spends nearly a billion United States dollars annually to import grain.
The government has so far a number of initiatives including Command Agriculture and Pfumvudza with the objective of averting starvation in the country.
More: The Chronicle