The Zimbabwean government, desperately trying to strengthen its grip on foreign currency inflows, is mulling taking over the marketing of all horticultural products from early next year, according to the country’s The Financial Gazette.

Zimbabwe’s balance of payments position deteriorated after the International Monetary Fund pulled the plug in 1999, and the government now plans to set to take up the marketing of horticultural products under the same model of the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA).

Sources told the newspaper that the Zim government “would soon establish an entity with the sole responsibility of marketing flowers and other horticultural products and would also administer marketing contracts for private horticulture firms”.

Horticulture is the country’s second largest foreign currency earner after tobacco.

Already the government controls the marketing of major foreign currency-earning minerals such as gold, diamonds, nickel and is making overtures to have a grip on the marketing of the lucrative platinum group metals.

Agricultural minister Joseph Made could neither confirm nor deny the development when contacted for comment by The Financial Gazzette. And while officials from the Horticultural Promotion Council could not be reached for comment, sources claimed the government was seeking to improve productivity.

“The move by government to take over the marketing of horticultural produce is also meant to boost production levels and increase the country’s foreign currency channels,” the HPC was quoted as saying.

Horticultural exports have declined by 22.53 percent in the past five years as productivity dwindled after veterans of Zimbabwe’s war of liberation started land acquisitions.

The controversial land reform saw more than 90 percent of the white-owned commercial farms being redistributed to the landless black population.

At the industry’s peak in 1999, Zimbabwe earned US$142 million from exports to traditional markets in Europe, including the UK, Holland, France and Germany.

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