It is my pleasure to welcome you to another issue of our quarterly newsletter, the VALUE News -Talking Goats and Pigs. In this issue we highlight key achievements during the second quarter of 2021, inspiring stories of change from one of the pig farmers we are working with and other project news.

During the period, April to June 2021, we up-scaled our interventions to ensure that the concept of commercialisation takes root within the goat and pork value chain producer associations that we have established in the 20 districts of operation. The fluidity of the markets continues to pose a challenge for the small and medium producers, we however remain focused on delivering on our mandate of establishing viable market driven systems for the small and medium producers in the goat and pork value chains.

We remain cognizant of the negative impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on enterprises of small and medium producers and the nation at large. The increase in cases during the month of June resulted in sterner measures being put in place by the government to curb the spread of the contagion. As a result, we have maintained high fluidity in aligning our programming to the changing external environment as induced by the pandemic.

As always, the message is mask up, wash your hands frequently, adhere to the regulations as shared by the government of Zimbabwe and WHO on COVID-19 protocols.

I Hope you find this issue informative. Happy reading.

Newton Chari - VALUE Project Team Leader