00:01Under the morning sun, women moved briskly through neat rows of bushes,
00:05plucking blueberries for Zimbabwe's export market thrown wide open by China.
00:11Managers of the Forester Estates Farm just outside the capital Harare
00:15want to more than double their planting area to 50 hectares next year
00:20to capitalize on the booming demand.
00:23The funding, that's the problem, the funding.
00:25To start this project, it's not that easy.
00:29To start a new crop from scratch, you need like 50,000 to 55,000 to establish the crop.
00:40Irrigation system, the weed made, the seed, whatever you need to establish the crop.
00:48So it's so intense to get someone who can be willing to fund you the funds to do this project.
00:57So we're doing it on our own.
00:58The country dispatched its first shipment of blueberries to China in July.
01:04The market offers a potentially transformative new destination for the farmers who can afford to scale up.
01:10It just means that our products from Zimbabwe get access into the Chinese market with no tariffs or taxes.
01:20We've enjoyed the same from the EU and UK.
01:24It's now the same thing for the Chinese market, which is very interesting because, as you know, China is a
01:30massive population.
01:32It opens up markets and access to 1.4 billion people.
01:40Zimbabwe is Africa's third largest blueberry producer after Morocco and South Africa and one of the world's fastest growing producers
01:49of the fruit.
01:53And when we get this done, we can just do this.
01:54There must be this.
01:55There must be this.
01:55There must be this.
Comments