Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Fresh Hubs’ big marketing challenge

Home Business Fresh Hubs’ big marketing challenge

WINDHOEK – Fresh Produce Business Hubs of the Agro Marketing and Trade Agency (AMTA) is not satisfied with the presence of local produce on the shelves of local retail shops, saying this “needs to improve”. The agency does, however, acknowledge that increasing the stocks of local produce in local retail shops is a job that it has to tackle head on, as the market was not previously organised to accommodate local produce.

“We want to encourage retailers as well as vendors to make use of the produce produced locally. We want to encourage consumers to look out for locally produced produce when doing their shopping. When you spend your dollar on local produce, you are contributing to the country’s economy and you are also creating employment,” says Meke Uushona, the Corporate Branding and Promotion Specialist at AMTA.

One of the challenges facing AMTA is organising and mobilising farmers as well as training them to produce according to good agricultural practices. It is for these reasons that the agency is introducing new best producing methods that require consultation, training and guidance. Compounding the challenge is the fact that small-scale farmers had for long been subsistence farmers, who only sell surplus to the market, and this requires the agency to find new approaches to establish a sustainable market for small-scale farmers.

The agency is currently responsible for marketing a variety of produce from the small-scale farmers. These rang from potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cabbages, sweet potatoes, beetroots, cucumbers, watermelons, sweet melons, dates, pumpkins, butternuts, to beans. The agency is nevertheless quick to add that Namibia cannot produce everything as, “some of the produce may not be produced locally because of our climate conditions,” says Uushona.

She says local produce is not only priced competitively compared to South African imported produce but is also fresh produce. “If you take a cabbage from a farm in the [northern regions], for instance, the time it takes for it to go into a retail shop in Windhoek is within 24 hours hence it will be much fresher than one that has gone through long distances,” she says.