Ruramiso Mashumba is a 35 year old female farmer who has done remarkable work in the Agricultural industry in Zimbabwe. She is farming on a 150-hectares in a farm that she inherited from her parents in Marondera.
Ruramiso Mashumba is a 35 year old female farmer who has done remarkable work in the Agricultural industry in Zimbabwe. She is farming on a 150-hectares in a farm that she inherited from her parents in Marondera. Ruramiso holds coveted positions such as the Chairperson of Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union Youth and the youth Vice Chairperson of the Southern African Confederation of Agriculture Union. She hosted the African Development Bank (AfDB) on her farm in 2018. Ruramiso is also among the 2019 Junior Chamber International (JCI) Ten Outstanding Persons of the year in Zimbabwe. Her outstanding profile is desirable to anyone, however, the process to be where she is today is far from perfect.
She Was Made To Appreciate The Lucrative Side Of The Agriculture Industry
Unlike many Zimbabweans who grew up exposed to subsistence farming, mainly involving hoes and ox-drawn ploughs, Ruramiso had a different experience. She was made to appreciate the lucrative side of the agriculture industry during her high school years at Watershed College, a school with a strong agriculture training curriculum. Whilst at the school, she would notice the luxurious lifestyles of most of the students, predominantly white, that were raised on farms. Some would attend school driving top of the range vehicles and others owned small spraying jets. She admired that life and it gave her the desire to pursue agriculture.
There Was A Huge Potential To Farm And Export From Zimbabwe
Ruramiso went on to attend the University of West England where she studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Business Management. Upon completion of her studies she was head hunted by an agricultural engineering company. The company was establishing its African sales department which made Ruramiso a suitable candidate as an African. Whilst working in the United Kingdom (UK), Ruramiso noticed that the farming was highly mechanised. There was minimal human labour employed in comparison to the situation back home. Despite these advances in the farming industry, UK had severe weather patterns hampering output such as extreme cold. Ruramiso realised that there was a huge potential to farm and export from Zimbabwe during their winter. She therefore decided to return home and give it a go.
Upon her return in 2012, the farm was a vast bush without any habitable buildings. It was a trying time moving from the comfortable life in the developed world to living on a farm, isolated from friends and family. Ruramiso was kept going by her desire for a mechanised farm coming to fulfilment. Furthermore, as a child she had longed to assist people in extreme hardships and now she was living among a suffering rural community. This desire had been kindled by her mother, a nurse by profession, who had worked with rural women living with HIV/AIDS. Her mother would share sad stories of the women with her as a child and this developed a desire in her to help people in need.
Her initial hurdle was securing capital to purchase basic farming equipment. Financial institutions classified her as a high risk, being a young woman without any proven experience. She was fortunate to secure a small loan from her family which she used to purchase a water pump to start market gardening. Initially she planted vegetables such as king onions, carrots and cabbages on one hectare of land, selling produce to Food Lovers’ Market. In the second year, she approached Lonrho Fresh Exports Zimbabwe for an export contract. “At first they were sceptical but when they came to see what I was doing, it impressed them. That is how I got a contract for snap peas for export,” she said.
Without Machinery You Cannot Achieve Much
With success from her first export crop, she increased the farming land to 5 hectares. She entered an agreement with a neighbouring farmer who would plough for her with a tractor and pump water to her crop in exchange for using part of her arable land. In 2014, she partnered with Sustainable Afforestation Association, together they planted 100 hectares of gum trees on her farm. This was to curb effects of the deforestation in her community. Her work was profiled by the Zimbabwe Farmers Union in 2015 giving her the attention of AGCO Corporation in United States of America (USA). She was invited to speak in Berlin, Germany on small holder farming winning her a USD$50 000 farming package comprising a tractor, a ripper and a plough. This was a big break for her as she started realising higher yield. “Without machinery you cannot achieve much. The soil requires ripping of at least 30 centimetres deep. It is impossible to do that using hoes which is why rural farmers can never achieve 10 tonnes and above per hectare of maize,” she stated.
With the mechanisation, it became easier to plant and earn higher and she began investing in more machinery on the farm. Her farming further extended when she attained a contract to grow seed maize for Seed-Co Zimbabwe. Opportunities kept coming her way and in the year 2016 she was selected and attended the Mandela- Washington Fellowship program meant to support and develop young African leaders. During the fellowship, Barack Obama, then President of the USA, motivated the fellows on how they were solutions to challenges in their own communities. This shifted Ruramiso’s focus on the challenges in her rural community which probed her to find a solutions. This led to the formation of Mnandi Africa, an organisation that seeks to empower rural farmers particularly women to achieve high yields. The company organises field days for farmers to teach them how to grow a particular crop. They also assist farmers by tilling their land using machinery during the planting seasons.
Ruramiso also runs Mnandi Foods program which partners with community women in growing traditional African grains which are packaged for sale. She also formed a platform called Women Who Farm with two other women from Zambia and Ghana. The platform celebrates women in agriculture and gives advice on agricultural related issues. They intend to groom women ambassadors in farming from the platform who will go on to train other women, particularly in rural communities.
It Took Her Years Of Hard Work And Constantly Proving Herself To Gain Respect As A Farmer
The journey as a young woman in farming has been challenging for Ruramiso. There have been moments where she has found herself as the only woman in the room. It took her years of hard work and constantly proving herself to gain respect as a farmer. Today, her farm is completely mechanised, with a centre pivot for irrigation and also ploughing and harvesting machinery. There are plans to switch to renewable energy to sustain all the activities on the farm in a year’s time. Ruramiso was not an overnight success, she is still in the process of growing. She insists that farming is not a get rich quick scheme but a process that develops in stages. She also urges those who want to venture into farming not to be discouraged by the size of the land in their possession but to start with what they have
