Noble Gold Partnership

This innovation fights poverty and hunger in rural areas through an Eco- inclusive farming partnership. This is achieved by contributing to the transformation of rural agriculture by fully supporting the local farmers through the capacitating of the drive to expand their farming operations through provision of inputs with a greater emphasis on promotion of decent youth and women employment. This business model, seeks to solve inter-connected developmental problems like damage to the environment, high levels of youth and women unemployment, low formal growth entrepreneurship and unsustainable SMEs growth in Zimbabwe. Under the scheme, the company provides agricultural inputs and equipment to rural small scale farmers who then after harvest, sell their produce to Noble Gold factory as raw material inputs.

In Zimbabwe extreme poverty is disproportionately concentrated in rural areas where most people 67% (World Bank 2020) rely on agriculture for sustenance and incomes. Decades of economic recession have led to urban industries closing. The few that have remained operational cannot sufficiently adsorb the general populace into decent wage earning employment. This economic recession have led to those that have lost formal jobs venture into small scale farming. However this have remained highly underfunded as banks are hesitant to give loans due to lack of collateral hence the ventures have not been successful. Due to greater levels of poverty, most farmers can no longer afford certified planting seed. They use grain from their previous harvest as planting seed for the current farming season. With this scenario, the yield is continuously decreasing from one farming season to another thereby rendering the farmer poorer and vulnerable to hunger.

If communal farmers are not adequately supported, they may not achieve viable income levels, as a result, rural-urban migration remains continuously increasing thereby increasing pressure on urban resources. This business model project therefore aims at transforming communal farming communities of the country into sustainable self-reliance farming trajectory through expansion and diversification of revenue streams. 

This business model was developed so as to create a bigger impact in Zimbabwe to address the problem of rural communities’ poverty and hunger as it aims at introducing an innovative total farmer inclusive partnership model that breaks the cycle of intergenerational hunger and poverty among rural smallholder farmers who have remained poor despite being in farming for decades. This is achieved through an interconnected value chain that seeks to solve inter-connected developmental problems like damage to the environment, high levels of youth and women unemployment, low formal growth entrepreneurship and unsustainable agro- farming SMEs growth in Zimbabwe.

Noble Gold is driven by an aspiration to provide prosperity and maximum benefit along the value chain from the suppliers (famers), employees, stakeholders, and eventually consumers thereby making a positive impact to the society at the same time doing business. The enterprise is a social impact enterprise supporting local farmers to capacitate their farming businesses as well as providing profitable market for their produce for increased income, creating jobs for youth and women and delivering world class locally produced healthy products to the consumers. 

The main beneficiaries of this innovation project are the rural communal farmers who face challenges in accessing funding opportunities to enable them to realize their full potential and grow their farming businesses and integrate them into the mainstream economy. Decades of economic recession in Zimbabwe have led to a major shift from waged employment to informal economic activities. Small scale farmers in all sectors have suffered due to the deteriorated business environment and are unable to access finance and business development services, severely affecting their growth and sustainability. This has adversely affected the economy of Zimbabwe considering the historical economic significance of the agricultural sector as a number of manufacturing industries strongly depend on the sector.

The company selects small holder farmers who are trained on how to productively do banana and small grain crops. Farmers in every sector of our main raw materials are selected then work out a tailor made scheme that provides agricultural inputs. After harvest, the farmers then sell their farm produce to Noble Gold. The model also address gender disparities as women are vital contributors to farm work. Addressing this gap helps households women become more productive and increase incomes within poor families.

This innovation fights poverty and hunger in rural areas through an inclusive partnership that champions the idea of green rural industrialisation hence strongly advocates for rural businesses to engage in innovative value addition, and not just concentrate on selling unprocessed raw products. All the small grain crops covered under the scheme are drought-resistant crops this therefore strengthens resilience and adaptability to climate change. The farmers use conservation agriculture techniques that give better yields during dry years (30% higher) than conventional methods. The project innovation helps to eliminate post-harvest losses as the factory provides a ready direct market for the produce. 

Supporting farmers by capacitating their farming through provision of inputs and then after harvest the farmers sell their produce to Noble Gold factory as raw materials, is what separates us from others as the business model offers a rare opportunity for strategic investments to be made in a rural community focusing on promoting among others, communal farmers’ survival and development. Other organizations in the same line of business for example Sunspane, do not go an extra mile like supporting the farmers with inputs. As a result, they do not get good quality bananas and they do not contribute to the social welfare of the local community. They only focus on revenue without a play on social responsibility. With this model, Noble Gold provides local farmers with great opportunities to grow their businesses and capacitate them to care for their families. The enterprise offers inputs as well as advice on ecological issues and manufactures liquid fertilizer that it encourages farmers to use as organic fertilizer.
The company’s mission of setting up green food processing factory right in the middle of rural communities of Gutu and Honde Valley is critical in creating local decent employment thereby curbing rural-urban migration. The enterprise has established a drying plant in Honde Valley resulting in increased revenue to the farmer as they sell their produce locally without travelling long distances to Harare and other cities.

Banana flour is a product produced from dried green unripe bananas milled to produce nutritious banana flour that contains resistant starch. This product contains no preservatives or additives. Technology that is used to produce this product includes computerized fruit driers and fruit slicer. Resistant starch from green bananas contributes to digestive, brain, kidney and eye health and is also good for diabetic people.
Sanitary pads made from banana plant fibre sell at half the price of the conversional cotton pads. The pads are sold in local shops and are also distributed to schools. Local women make up the vast majority of the production team at the site. The fibre is cut, washed, fluffed and solar-dried before it is compressed into the pads. Our main focus is on boarding schools and tertiary institutions. On boarding schools, the Head girls are the ambassadors of this product. As a move to plough back to the community, the company shall sponsor some schools competitions and pay portion of school fees as prizes. This helps to create a bond with products straight from schools to tertiary level and that bond remains even when these students grow to parenthood.
The pads are ecofriendly: no water is used in making them and also very little electricity. Unlike the conversional pads, the banana fibre pads do not contain any chemicals or non-biodegradable super-absorbent polymers. Technology that is used to produce this product includes computerized fibre extracting machine and fibre comber.

Collectively under the whole business model, currently there are a total of 65 farmers that benefits from this scheme. The primary objective of this innovation is to fight poverty and hunger in rural areas. Noble Gold provides a very nutritious and affordable baby and family porridge currently selling locally with a vision to go regionally and internationally. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Currently banana stem fibre is not utilized as it is just cut and is left to rot on the ground. Most of the sanitary pads currently used in Zimbabwe are imported from South Africa and are cotton made making it expensive hence a lot of women cannot afford. It is estimated that during menstrual period, rural girls miss up to 50 days of school each year due to a lack of sanitary pads and women miss daily chores for the same reasons. With our innovation, we manufacture 100% bio- degradable (eco-friendly) sanitary pads as a by-product from fibre that is extracted from the banana stem. This fights the dumping of the non-degradable conventional cotton pads thereby protecting the environment (no litter) as well as increased access to sanitary hygiene for the less privileged girls and women in rural communities. This innovation will bring into the market an extremely cheaper sanitary pad which every girl child would afford (the Earth-friendly and inexpensive pads).

Selected farmers are trained on growing all the crops covered in the factory raw materials spectrum and these act as change agents who influence and inspire their peers. The operations create employment and this increases household incomes eventually leading to poverty eradication. The company’s effort of supporting farmers to produce raw materials, processing and marketing the products have an overall positive contribution towards food security in the country.
The current enterprise staff complement is 5 and supporting 65 farmers rural small scale farming households. By July 2021 the company projects to have created 20 direct jobs and supporting over 200 small scale farmers. As Business growth drive, the company looks forward to developing the market share by introducing a marketing route covering Bulawayo, Hwange, Victoria Falls and Livingston in Zambia. As way to strengthen this derive, the company has engaged National Railways of Zimbabwe for discounted rates to use their wagon transportation.

The primary impact of the business model is to fully support the local farmers by capacitating the drive to expand their farming operations as they become main suppliers in the supply chain for the required manufacturing raw materials for the factory under contract farming. This is an essential broader-based framework towards poverty-reduction strategy through employment creation and provide consumers with affordable nutritious food so as to improve lives and livelihoods in the communal communities. Here the factory comes in as the ever-ready market for the farmer produce thereby becoming the strongest link between the farmer and the consumer. This relationship is of mutual benefit to both sides as the farmers, sale their produce at better prices and the factory also gets a constant and stable supply of the required raw materials.
In one year’s time, we look forward to increase the number of people benefiting to 100. In five years when the project becomes fully operationally capacitated, over 200 rural farmer households will benefit from the project. To effectively run this project and get best crop quality, Noble Gold provides all the farming inputs which include certified seed, and organic fertilizers.

Collectively under the whole business model, currently there are a total of 65 farmers that benefits from this scheme. The primary objective of this innovation is to fight poverty and hunger in rural areas. This is achieved by contributing to the transformation of rural agriculture by fully supporting the local farmers through the capacitating of the drive to expand their farming operations through provision of inputs with a greater emphasis on promotion of decent youth and women employment. Under the scheme, the company provides agricultural inputs and equipment to rural small scale farmers who then after harvest, sale their produce to Noble Gold factory as raw material inputs. In one year’s time, we look forward to increase the number of people benefiting to 100. In five years when the project becomes fully operationally capacitated, over 200 rural farmer households will benefit from the project. To effectively run this project and get best crop quality, Noble Gold provides all the farming inputs which include certified seed, and organic fertilizers.Through this business innovation proposal, the rural farmers are assisted to access the much needed agricultural inputs and certified planting materials which they are currently having some challenges in acquiring as a result that helps to boost their farming activities. As Noble Gold, we have a competitive advantage in that we get our raw materials right from the small scale farmers that we are assisting to produce through our farmer out grower scheme.

Within the next year, Noble Gold seeks a funding facility and technical assistance for the purpose of financing working capital so as to competitively carry out the business operations as well as to capacitate the expansion drive for the business to be self reliant. The funds will help to expand the plantations of the local rural farmers as well as purchase of factory value addition machinery and construction of the factory infrastructure.

The long term goal of this business model is to develop the business to a level of becoming a fully-fledged and stand-alone business unit in its own right. Within the next five years time, the company would need to erect a bigger biogas facility so that the facility can supply all the heating energy requirements for the factory. The company will run a small dairy project so that all the factory production milk required can be internally sourced. The stock feed will be made from banana stem shavings produced during fibre extraction. The cow dung will be used on the biogas facility and the residue can be used as organic fertiliser. Capacitating the business will have a great impact on the national economy in that it reduces unemployment as more people are hired as the business operations expands. 

Decades of economic recession in Zimbabwe have led to a major current liquidity crisis and its impact to the economy resulting in major shift from waged employment to informal economic activities. However these informal ventures have remained highly underfunded as banks are hesitant to give out loans due to lack of collateral hence the ventures have not been successful.  This has resulted in shortage of low priced funding to finance Operational equipment and Working capital.

Zimbabwe is struggling with a negative current account balance which continues to worsen the prevailing liquidity crunch. This has resulted in shortage of low priced inputs- most rural small-scale farmers work without modern green certified input seeds, conservative technology, and inadequate financial and extension services thereby adversely affecting their productivity levels. Slow economic recovery from this economic crunch still has an adverse bearing in the development of the economy and the population at large due to depressed expenditure levels. Suppliers of inputs are reluctant to offer lucrative credit and payment terms, demanding cash up front from the farmers.

High utility costs and frequent load shedding –Unrealistic electricity billing costs and frequent power cuts have interrupted production and added to the costs. Due to these frequent electricity power cuts, there is too much idle time which is negatively impacting on the organizational operations. However the capacity is still very low hence delaying the expansion drive. To speed up the capacity level and increase revenue, the company needs some funding assistance.

As Noble Gold after realising how difficult it is for the rural communal farmers to access funding opportunities and green entrepreneurial skills, the company noticed a need for supporting these farmers in adopting sustainable green agricultural practices that can enable them to realize their full potential and grow their farming businesses and integrate them into the mainstream economy through an inclusive partnership. This business model, seeks to solve inter-connected developmental problems like damage to the environment, high levels of youth unemployment, low formal growth entrepreneurship and unsustainable SMEs growth in Zimbabwe.

Under this business innovation model, Noble Gold comes up with some tailor made packages that assist the farmers by proving them with all their necessary green agricultural inputs, equipment and operational support services. This in turn gives a higher output and effective coordination along the proposed value chain as a result more crop harvest would be brought to the factory as inclusive market for the farm produce from the supported farmers. This relationship is of mutual benefit to both sides as the farmers, sale their produce at better prices and the factory also gets a constant and stable supply of the required raw materials. To counter the frequent electricity power cuts, the factory has moved all its machines that require less electric power off the national grid to solar energy. All the heating energy required in the factory is being developed so that it’s derived from biogas.

Not applicable

The company is founder-managed through consultancy engagements from specific area professional experts like Food microbiologists, Food analysis scientists, Dieticians, Agronomists and Industrial engineers.

We have the

• Executive Director who is the founder managing the financial function and driving effective business development and growth strategies.
• Production executive responsible for product development and oversees and directs the whole operational function of the manufacturing plant.
• Factory supervisor responsible for factory production.
• Factory workforce.
• More than 100 small scale farmers contracted as inclusive partnership farmers to produce raw materials crops under farmer out-grower contract farming scheme.

Mr Kudakwashe Mawere is the Executive Director responsible for sourcing business funding and overall administration and strategic planning for the successful implementation of the organisational developmental plans and strategies.  

• Career experience: - Over 15 years of continuous career progression in financial management roles gaining steady promotions through organizational hierarchies.
• Trainings: - 1. Completed training on entrepreneurship courses delivered in the framework of International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Green enterprise development program in Zimbabwe on (a) Business plan development, Presentation skills and Pitching. (b) Improve your business- Greening business systems, Marketing, Record keeping, Costing and Productivity.  2. Completed Seed Africa Business Catalyser Support program delivered under the framework of UN Environment program (UNEP), UNDP and IUCN. 3. Trained on Bio-Liquid fertilizer production at Zimbabwe Sunshine Group (ZSG).
• Affiliates and membership: - 1. Board member of Farmers Economic Growth Trust (FEGT). The organization champions the commercialization of production systems in the various farming industry sectors of Zimbabwe. 2. A member of Small to Medium Enterprises Association of Zimbabwe (SMEAZ).

Miss Nyasha Musingwini is the Dietician responsible for product development and oversees and directs the whole operational function of the manufacturing plant. Her career objectives involve exploring and contribute into the diverse field of dietetics and human nutrition in food manufacturing industry. This involves focusing on food production application of the food nutritional scope content, improving healthy food stuffs at an individual and corporate framework. Research: - Clinical nutrition in-patient care (food manufacturing services and clinical nutrition studies)

The enterprise is supported through its partnership with various stakeholders ranging from national and international organisations, research institutions, suppliers, NGOs, other social and environmental enterprises.

Panga banana organization- is a group of banana farmers with whom Noble Gold has a working partnership agreement.

Batanai farmer group- is a group of local communal small grain farmers that receive inputs from Noble Gold. After harvest they sell their produce to Noble Gold.

Zimbabwe Women Farmers Association Trust (ZIWFAT)- this is a trust that looks after the welfare of  women farmers in Zimbabwe with a greater objective of capacitating in the transformative value of women's participation in farming. This is achieved through addressing the plight of Zimbabwe women farmers after witnessing the hardships they face in the execution of their farming businesses. The trust has a database of over 7500 women farmers across the ten provinces in Zimbabwe. Noble Gold takes advantage of the database so as to effectively coordinate its operational partnership model with the trust through the supply of farming inputs and after harvest, the farmers sell their produce to Noble Gold. The model also address gender disparities as women are vital contributors to farm work. Addressing this gap helps households women become more productive and increase incomes within poor families.

Impact Africa Trust (IAT) –an international NGO assisting us with the technical support for professional and sustainable implementation of the green innovation project. IAT bridges the funding and technical skills gap in our agri- business project.

In order to ensure lasting impact on the target communities, the operating expenses and investments is covered by the revenue streams that are generated from the enterprise operational sales revenue.

Concretely, the business model of Noble Gold is the following:

Noble Gold starts by supplying crop planting seeds and equipment to the local famers for them to start their agricultural production. The enterprise currently mainly supplies banana tissue culture plants, sugar beans and ground nuts as seed. Then after harvest, farmers sell their produce to Noble Gold factory as raw material inputs. This improves the livelihood of the local farmers as they receive better prices for their harvests and the enterprise also secures a stable supply of raw materials for value addition. Through this business model, rural agricultural is being supported to improve and provide decent livelihoods to rural communities. This has transformed rural farming and has managed to improve production by over 30% resulting in communal farming communities becoming sustainably self-reliant farming trajectory through expansion and diversification of revenue streams. Part of the farm produce is sold as raw products (like banana fruits and sugar beans) and the other part is transformed into other value added products like banana flour, porridges, fruit juice drink, sanitary pads made from banana stem fibre and liquid fertilizer. This business model provides a financial sustainability to the enterprise.

The company’s main objective is to create value for customers as that helps sell satisfactory products and services, while creating value for shareholders, in the form of increased business production that insures the future availability of products so as to fund operations at a profit. We are increasingly pushing for better management goals which tend to place cost-cutting measures that produce short-term results ahead of investments that enhance long-term competitiveness and growth. Putting value creation in the right way, managers will know where and how to grow; this has helped us to deploy capital better than our competitors enhancing the company's ability to achieve profitable and long-lasting growth.

Our annual revenue projection is $30000.00 giving an average monthly projection of $2500.00. Out of that revenue 30% covers for operational expenses and 40% goes to the procurement of raw materials. Within a period of two years, we look forward to increasing our production level by 150% as well as trebling our market share. Due to low value per unit and low margins, this business thrives on producing and selling good quality products in high volumes rather than high mark ups.

Finalists in this challenge will be invited to pitch their solutions. Attending that platform will create a conducive platform to engage with other thought-provoking entrepreneurs through innovative session formats that provide ample opportunity for discussions about inequities facing other entrepreneurs globally. This will expand my understanding about solutions to, innovations for, and research on inequities affecting people through sessions, workshops, big idea talks, innovation labs and more facilities that the summit will provide. There is greater need for research in developing countries to advance knowledge and solve practical development problems that seeks to enhance the employment and economic opportunities of vulnerable groups particularly women and youth and foster a more inclusive economy participation.

Selected Solver teams will join a supportive community of peers, funders, and experts to help advance their work; receive mentorship and strategic advice from Solve and MIT networks and receive prize funding for the 2019 Challenge. This will be accompanied by a 12 months of personalized support with intentional introductions to members of Solve’s cross-sector community. Through these connections, we will build the partnerships needed to accelerate our work, validate our impact and business model, and scale our solution. All this experience and exposure is of great impact to the organization as it will significantly help us to scale up the solution in a much more professional way.

For Small to Medium Enterprises to fully grow, they need to be economically empowered through facilitating their participation in the mainstream economy. This can only be achieved by partnering with business developmental institutions hence our partnership goal.

The factory production facility largely employs local female workforce. The manufacturing of sanitary pads made from fibre extracted from banana stem, makes them available and affordable to women as well as creating decent jobs for them in the process. On the sanitary pads, the main market focus is boarding schools and tertiary institutions. On boarding schools, the Head girls are the ambassadors of this product. The company looks forward to working out a collaborative framework with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other NGOs that advocates for the communities supply of sanitary pads so that it supplies their entire sanitary provision projects. That framework assists in marketing the product at a very higher organizational platform.

The company also looks forward to working with provincial hospitals with regard to patients with diabetes, high blood pressure and infant pediatrics as a way to introduce into the market its Milk shake, Family porridge and Soft baby porridge. The company will also engage marketing organizations like ‘Better Agriculture’ and ‘Zimtrade’– these are companies which provide technical and business consultancy along the entire agricultural value chain, as well as identifying suitable market linkages with proper buyers in Zimbabwe, African regions and abroad so as to stimulate export sales. It is our business belief that we shall get to a stage where we will be exporting our value added products. The business shall create a whatsapp platform through which it communicates with its customers so as to get feedback from customers on product market appreciation.