Why Zimbabwe needs to buy, process and employ locally

Kundai Gorejena

On July 23 to 24, 2026, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, in partnership with Africa Economic Development Strategies (AEDS) and ZimTrade, hosted the Zimbabwe Industrialisation Conference and Expo (ZICE).

Attention now turns to the upcoming National Agriculture Conference and Expo (NACE), which provides an important opportunity to take that conversation into the agricultural sector.

Agriculture is not merely a supplier of raw materials to the industrial economy. It is a central pillar of Zimbabwe’s economy and livelihoods. Around 70-80% of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods, while the sector supplies approximately 63% of the raw materials required by manufacturers and contributes around 30% of the country’s total export earnings (ZIDA; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade).

Although agriculture’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) has declined over the years as mining and services have expanded more rapidly, the sector recorded the fastest growth of 27.9% in 2025, according to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency.

Therefore, when President Dr Emmerson Mnangagwa spoke about import substitution during his official opening of ZICE, this highlighted that agriculture should not be an afterthought. A sector capable of such a significant recovery clearly has the potential to drive import substitution through increased local production. The challenge is to ensure that production, procurement and processing are deliberately integrated, rather than operating in isolation.

What Zimbabwe still imports

According to the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) data, Zimbabwe imported over 1.14 million tonnes of maize grain between April 2025 and March 2026 valued at close to US$401 million. Although this represented a 35.6% improvement compared with the previous year, reflecting a better harvest, it still meant that almost US$400 million was spent importing a crop in which Zimbabwe has historically achieved self-sufficiency.

Wheat imports have also remained significant, increasing from approximately 258,151 tonnes in 2022-2023 to more than 380,951 tonnes in 2024-2025. The challenge extends beyond grain.

Government’s Agricultural Food System and Rural Transformation Strategy (2026-2030) notes that as consumer diets shift away from maize towards more diversified staples, pasta imports increased by 362% and rice imports by 237% between 2019 and 2024. Rice is now the fourth biggest starch staple in the country, after maize, wheat and traditional grains.

Then there’s cooking oil. Zimbabwe spends roughly US$323 million a year importing vegetable and animal oils, including crude soya and vegetable oil from South Africa and Zambia. At the same time, the country exports raw, unprocessed soya beans that could supply much of this domestic demand if they were crushed and refined locally. Increasing soya production from around 94,000 tonnes to approximately 300,00 tonnes would go a long way towards closing this gap.

The broader point is simple: every tonne of maize, wheat, pasta, rice, or cooking oil imported represents money that could otherwise support a local mill, processor, packaging plant, logistics company or farmer. Import substitution, therefore, is not simply about reducing imports. It is about retaining more value within Zimbabwe by connecting farmers to processors, manufacturers, distributors and consumers.

The policy groundwork is already there

One thing that is often overlooked is that Zimbabwe is not starting from zero. Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025 already calls on processors and millers to progressively source grain and oilseeds locally, while levies collected under the framework are channelled into an Agricultural Revolving Fund. According to the government, approximately US$5.7 million has already been raised through these levies, with around US$3.2 million invested in irrigation across 850 hectares. This intervention is particularly timely given the anticipated El Niño risk for the 2026/27 period.

On the industrial side, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s Local Content Strategy 2026-2035 links local procurement to job creation and skills development, framing “Make Local, Buy Local, Consume Local” as a national campaign rather than a slogan confined to manufacturing.

Buy Zimbabwe has gone further by advocating a minimum 50% local-content threshold in public procurement. This is particularly important as Zimbabwe positions itself to benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), where compliance with rules of origin will be critical to ensuring that locally assembled products qualify for preferential market access.

The government has also begun validating sector-specific local content thresholds under the National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2 2026-2030), which targets a production-led and value-driven economy anchored in industrialisation and local manufacturing.

On the procurement side, the launch of the Zimbabwe Methodology for Assessing Procurement Systems Report 2026 at the inaugural Southern Africa Public Procurement Forum signals a broader effort to make public procurement more transparent and competitive. Effective implementation will be critical to ensuring that local suppliers have a fair opportunity to compete for state contracts.

For NACE, therefore, the task is not to develop another policy statement. It is to translate existing policies into clear, measurable, sector-specific commitments. For example:

1. Which crops and agricultural products should receive priority?
2. Where are the major processing and manufacturing gaps?
3. How can schools, hospitals, defence and correctional services prioritise locally grown and locally processed food?
4. What incentives are required to encourage processors to invest in domestic value addition?

These are the practical questions that can turn policy into measurable outcomes.

Where the value chain evidence is already working

Zimbabwe does not need to debate whether local value-chain development can work. Recent results provide evidence that it can done.

Avocado exports increased by 166.5% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. This demonstrates the potential of Zimbabwean horticulture to compete in regional and international markets when production, value chains, market linkages and regulation are aligned.

At the macroeconomic level, Zimbabwe recorded four consecutive months of trade surpluses in early 2026, with tobacco among the major contributors. The 2024/25 tobacco crop reportedly increased to approximately 352 million kilograms, generating more than US$1.1 billion in export earnings.

Import substitution and export growth should not be treated as competing priorities. The same investments in irrigation, processing, domestic markets, quality standards and logistics that enable Zimbabwe to replace import greater export market share in avocados, tobacco and other value-added agricultural products. The objective should therefore be to build competitive domestic value chains capable of serving both the local market and export markets.

Why public procurement is the lever, not just the symbol

Public procurement deserves greater emphasis because government is Zimbabwe’s largest and most predictable institutional buyer. If ministries, parastatals, defence institutions, schools and hospitals commit to prioritising locally grown grain, locally milled flour, locally packaged food and locally processed proteins, the impact could extend well beyond the immediate purchase. Such procurement could:

1. Reduce investment risk by creating predictable demand for local processing capacity;
2. Strengthen domestic value chains from the farm to the factory, reducing farmers’ dependence on volatile export and informal markets;
3. Create employment in farming, milling, processing, packaging, logistics, warehousing and quality assurance;
4. Develop industrial capabilities and skills through increased domestic production and processing; and
5. Retain more foreign exchange within Zimbabwe by reducing the need to import products that can be produced competitively at home.

This is the logic behind Buy Zimbabwe’s local-content agenda: procurement can become the bridge between agricultural production, industrialisation, employment and skills development.

But local procurement must also be accompanied by competitive pricing, consistent quality, reliable supply and transparent procurement systems. Buying local should not mean accepting poor quality or uncompetitive prices; rather, it should create the market certainty and incentives necessary for local producers to become more efficient, competitive and capable of meeting institutional demand.

Conclusion

Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector has demonstrated significant growth and resilience in recent years. Its export performance shows that internationally competitive agricultural value chains are possible, while the government has established levies, local-content strategies and procurement-reform frameworks that provide an important policy foundation.

What remains is execution, coordination and accountability.

Zimbabwe must align what farmers produce, what processors can absorb, what manufacturers require and what public and private buyers are prepared to purchase. The objective should be to ensure that every tonne of maize, wheat, soya bean or horticultural produce grown in the country first strengthens a Zimbabwean value chain, a Zimbabwean processor, a Zimbabwean manufacturer and a Zimbabwean job.

The question for NACE is therefore not simply how much Zimbabwe can produce, but how effectively it can convert that production into domestic value. It is whether Zimbabwe can buy, process and consume more of what it produces locally, while simultaneously building the competitiveness required to export more value-added products.

That is the pathway from agricultural production to industrialisation: Buy Local. Process Local. Employ Local and, ultimately, Export Local.

Kundai Gorejena is a graduate trainee (economics) at AEDS