Yes, I eat garlic for a long time, and I used it when cooking in nearly all my dishes, but hardly knowing
where it came from. I am happy to know meanwhile more about garlic thanks to my collaboration
with Soris Agro. Soris Agro invited me to work on their business development and export promoting.
Soris Agro becomes Zimbabwean’s leading company for the organic growth of garlic and ginger, no
doubt about that. It is a big pleasure to contribute to that prosperous future because it will lead to
the economic welfare of many small scale, rural farming families. Most of these rural families only
produce low-quality foods for own consumption.
They don’t have the knowledge of growing other types of crops, and also lack the farming tools, irrigation and power. Foremost they lack the cash to buy seeds of economically more worthful crops. Crops that they can sell after harvesting to the market, bringing them for the first time cash. Soris Agro will change their lives and support them and their rural communities, also because there is worldwide a growing demand for (better) garlic. Soris Agro will change their lives and support them and their rural communities, also because there is worldwide a growing demand for (better) garlic.
I never understood the story in the New Testament about the mysterious bread multiplication. Until I
attended this week a Soris Agro Field Visit day on a rural farm in the beautiful Nyanga region. Every
bulb of garlic counts 15-20 seeds, you plant them in squares of 10 centimetres and the outgrowth of
that one seed brings 4-5 months later again 15-20 seeds.
So, from an outgrowth on one acre you go in half a year to an outgrowth on one hectare, and so on. And one hectare gives an outgrowth of about 15 tons of garlic. Farmers receive guaranteed USDs per Kg garlic. When I learned this and told my wife, she immediately started a search for some hectares. Garlic makes greedy, be warned.
It is social entrepreneurship and not greediness, that thrives Soris Agro and that is why I like to work
with them. Their business model is based on three interdependent economic pillars:
- Market: offering on the world market high volumes of branded best quality of a commodity food.
- Accumulation: outgrowers receive within a short period of time cash for their crop to reinvest.
- ROI: the high social and economic ROI is extremely rewarding for the growth of the company.
Soris Agro (link to their website) started in 2020 and promotes itself as ‘Pioneering sustainable
organic horticultural production underpinned by renewable energy’. In Zimbabwe you may not find
another horticulture company with this vision. It is brought into practice by personal relation
management to the farmers and strategic alliances with social, financial, and technological
stakeholders. Technological innovation will help to reduce the ecological footprint on all farms.
With an international team of agriculture, marketing & sales expertise, and private and NGO’s
funding networkers, we build a global platform for Soris Agro. On the inside we realize a small
effective professional organization, with a core team of experts in agronomy, project management,
technology and IT, marketing, and finance. Non-core task and jobs are outsourced, and the focus is
on international marketing, education, and facilitation of the outgrowers, and product quality
control.
The sustainable production by Soris Agro of organic garlic in Zimbabwe, already known for the best
taste, is a very worthful contribution to the agronomic and economic restoration of the country.
Thanks to companies as Soris Agro the poorness of rural farming families will end. And: Zimbabwe
will become a prosperous partner of Africa as world’s future food valley.
