Noble Gold- Inclusive Rural Farming Partnership

Noble Gold is a company with a vision to develop an innovative Agro-farming and processing business model under farmer out-grower contract farming. The primary objective is to fight poverty and hunger in rural areas thereby creating and advancing equitable and inclusive economic growth across geographies and demographics. This is achieved by contributing to the transformation of rural agriculture by fully supporting the local farmers through capacitating the drive to expand their farming operations through provision of inputs and equipment. Under the scheme, the company provides agricultural inputs to rural small scale farmers who then after harvest, sale their produce to Noble Gold factory as raw material inputs. The scheme covers every spectrum of the company’s main raw materials which includes maize, millet, sorghum, wheat, groundnuts, soya beans, sugar beans, banana, papaya and coffee. Through this inclusive partnership future best rural small scale farming businesses will emerge.

In Zimbabwe extreme poverty is disproportionately concentrated in rural areas where most people (67% of the population) rely on agriculture for sustenance and incomes. Globally, input efficiency has significantly improved agriculture however many of these gains have not benefited Zimbabwean rural farmers and this have resulted in a greater need to assist these rural communities so as to improve their livelihoods through efficiency in energy uses, resources and raw materials. Due to greater levels of poverty, most rural 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 becoming poorer and vulnerable to hunger. It is against this backdrop that small-scale farmers don’t get high level harvesting potentials. Therefore Noble Gold business model seeks to offer solutions to all the needs of our stakeholder rural farmers through use of Crop life management IT programs for all the crops that are covered under the spectrum range of crops that are covered as raw materials for the factory production. Through messaging apps farmers also interact with each other sharing farming ideas.

A large proportion of Zimbabwean population is rural based. Decades of economic recession have led to a 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. It is therefore through this business innovation support model that the company is different from others as it supports these rural agricultural operations so as to improve and provide decent livelihoods to rural communities. This business model project therefore aims at transforming communal farming communities into sustainable self-reliance farming trajectory through expansion and diversification of revenue streams. Collectively under the business model, currently there are 65 farmers benefiting. When the project becomes fully operationally capacitated, over 200 farmers 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 after realising how difficult it is for the rural communal farmers to access funding opportunities and green entrepreneurial IT 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. Noble Gold has gone greener in resolving these challenges as it assists its supported farmers to acquire solar powered water pumps thereby utilising renewable energy. 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.

  As a milestone, the company has established a well organized and effective network with rural small scale farmers. To create a sustainable growth to these farmers, it needs establishing a connectivity relationship with a buyer willing to purchase their produce at viable prices. Farmers invest heavily into their farming operations, only to end up disappointed by an oversupply in the market during harvesting period resulting in poor pay by middlemen. As Noble Gold, we have noticed that farmers deserve a better business model that mutually benefits both sides. Middlemen are profiteering at the expense of the farmers because of the low market prices caused by an oversupply to the market during harvest time. It is against this back drop scenario that Noble Gold comes in with a factory that provides an ever ready market for the farmers’ produce. The factory produces Banana flour, Cereal porridge, peanut butter, coffee and banana stem fibre sanitary pads.

Supporting rural 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, surrounding communal farmers’ survival and development. We champion the idea of rural industrialisation hence strongly advocates for rural businesses engaging in innovative value addition, and not just concentrate on selling unprocessed raw products. Our innovative products are banana flour and sanitary pads made from the banana stem fibre. Banana flour is blended with other small grain crops to produce various cereal porridges.

Sanitary pads- a by-product produced from extracted banana stem fibre thereby utilizing all the biomass from the banana tree. Currently banana stem fibre is not utilized as it is just cut and is left to rot on the ground. Millions of girls in Africa, and around the world, are forced to miss school because they cannot afford sanitary pads needed during their menstrual periods. It is against this backdrop that as Noble Gold we have made our research on the production process requirements to manufacture this product. By bringing this product into the market, a startup will change the girl child’s life style in managing their menstrual period requirements. This innovation will bring into the market an extremely cheaper sanitary pad which every girl child would afford (Earth-friendly and inexpensive pads).

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.

A large proportion of Zimbabwean population is rural based. Extreme poverty is disproportionately concentrated in these rural areas where most people (67% of the population) rely on agriculture for sustenance and incomes. The model produces nutritious organic banana flour that is blended to produce cereal porridge and banana flavoured powders to make Banana Milk Shake. Banana flour has a palatable flavour making it a favourite to other flours.  Since flour is almost a staple needed for every household breakfast meal this gives us a biggest market opportunity for the product. Very few rural families can afford bread every day. The coming in of Utano Banana flour will bring in something that rural families can afford for them to bake their own homemade bread. The company’s efforts of supporting farmers to produce raw materials, processing and marketing the products will have an overall positive contribution towards food security in the country. The project innovation helps to eliminate post harvest losses as the factory provides a ready direct market for the produce. 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. 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.

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. The long term plan is to develop the biogas facility so that it’s big enough to produce at least a 1 mega watt of electricity that can be used by the factory thereby moving the factory off the national grid. 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.

Did not select other

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.

Executive Director- Mr Kudakwashe Mawere is the Executive Director and the driver/ founder behind Noble Gold business model. He holds a B Com Accounting degree as well as a full ZAAT graduate qualification. He is a qualified professional with a demonstrable record of experience and achievements within the business sector, managing the financial function and driving effective business development and growth strategies.

His notable achievements

1. Over 15 years of continuous career progression in financial management roles gaining steady promotions through organizational hierarchies.
2. Board member of Farmers Economic Growth Trust (FEGT). The organization champions the commercialization of production systems in the various farming industry sectors of Zimbabwe.
3. Research: -The Positive Contribution that Proper Strategic Management can contribute towards developing sustainable Small Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Zimbabwe (2006 – 2007). Research survey on Improving lives and livelihoods of youths and women in Zimbabwe through Farming.

Dietician/ Production executive

Miss Nyasha Musingwini is the Dietician/ Production manager. She holds BSc in Dietetics and Human. She is responsible for product development and oversees and directs the whole operational function of the manufacturing plant.

Her notable achievements

• Over 8 years of continuous career progression in Dietetics and Human Nutrition management roles gaining steady promotions through organizational hierarchies.
• Publications: - The beliefs of primary school educators in the Cape Metropole regarding physical activity, fruit, vegetable, sugar and fat intake.(June 2016)

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. 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. We have two organizations that we are in partnership with:

• Panga banana Organisation- These are banana farmers we have a working partnership agreement whereby we supply them with inputs then after harvest they then sell the produce to our factory. To create a sustainable growth to these farmers, it needs establishing a connectivity relationship with a buyer willing to purchase their produce at viable prices.
• Batanai Farmer Group- These are farmers in Gutu we are working together with. We supply them with inputs then after harvest they sell the produce to our factory. These farmers produce mainly maize, millet, sorghum, groundnuts and sugar beans. We have trained these farmers conservation agriculture and this has greatly improved their farm production levels.

On the sanitary pads, our main selling focuses are boarding schools and tertiary institutions. Our research has revealed that these are the market segments where we have greater concentration in numbers of females still going on menstrual periods giving the biggest market opportunity.  This helps to create a bond with products straight from schools to tertiary level and that bond remains alive even when these students grow to parenthood.

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.

Banana flour is sold through wholesalers and supermarkets. To effectively sale under this channel, clients are supplied with the product on credit and they then pay after selling. This way, they order bigger consignments and that helps the company to move bigger volumes in sales. Currently the annual turnover is at USD69000.00. This is projected to treble in the next 2 years as we look forward to increase our market share from the current 12% to 30%. This would be achieved through expansion of our production levels and vigorous marketing of our products.

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. Value creation in today's business is increasingly represented in the intangible drivers like innovation, people, ideas, and brand.

To achieve this, Noble Gold is 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. As a result, value creation has become the first priority for all employees and all company decisions. Experience has taught us that putting value creation first in the right way, managers will know where and how to grow; this has helped us to deploy capital better than our competitors. This will give us an enormous advantage in building the company's ability to achieve profitable and long-lasting growth. The major categories of intangible assets include technology, innovation, intellectual property, alliances, management capabilities, employee relations, customer relations, community relations, and brand value. However to achieve all this, there is great need of a vigorous, innovative and consistent marketing campaign. 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. There is therefore a need to ensure enough capacity to produce and distribute large volumes in order to realise reasonable returns.

Finalists in this challenge will be invited to pitch their solutions at Solve Challenge Finals during UN General Assembly Week in New York City in September. Attending that summit 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.

Did not select

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.

Did not select

For Small to Medium Enterprises to fully grow, they need to be economically empowered through facilitating their participation in the mainstream economy. It is against this background that Noble Gold hereby seeks a funding facility with your institution through awarding of seed capital and technical assistance for the purpose of financing working capital and also purchase the necessary operational equipment so as to competitively carry out the business operations as well as to capacitate the expansion drive of the business. The primary intention for the facility is to raise funds to capacitate the business and also help to expand the plantations of the local rural farmers who are the main suppliers of the required input raw materials as well as purchase of value addition machinery and construction of the factory infrastructure.

Having a greater passion to contribute towards the attainment of the first two sustainable development goals (SDGs) ie; the eradication of hunger and poverty particularly in rural areas through development of a sustainable model, we carried out a research consulting local rural farmers to identify challenges hindering their sustainable farming. We believe that communities should be at the forefront of identifying their problems and building effective solutions to address them. We realised that strong, prosperous, and inclusive communities are built upon engaged and connected citizens who actively participate in shaping their social and economic future. The survey noticed great potential within the rural communities the only drawback is lack of adequate support to fully capacitate their farming activities.

Did not select

Did not select

Did not select

Did not select