About A.R.T.: Fact Sheet

Background

In 1981 the Commercial Oilseeds Producers’ Association (COPA) of the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) made the decision to buy an undeveloped property on the outskirts of Harare in order to create a research base for their members. Very soon afterwards they invited the Commercial Grain Producers’ Association (CGPA) to join their endeavours and the Agricultural Research Trust (ART) was created. The Trust was reinforced with the injection of additional capital by the Zimbabwe Cereals Producers’ Association (ZCPA) in 1983. More recently the Cattle Producers’ Association (CPA) contributed funding that gave them a seat on the Board of Management. The Trust was officially opened by the Minister of Agriculture the Honourable Denis Norman, M.P. in March 1983.

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Objectives

The Trust’s objectives as laid down in the original Trust Deed are inter alia to :

• research row and horticultural crops and to provide land, management inputs and skills for the production of applicable results for the benefit of the commercial farmers of Zimbabwe
• provide a contract research facility for any organisation requiring a service
• demonstrate veldt and pasture management including intensive grazing of irrigated pastures
• demonstrate commercial row crop, horticulture, cattle and pig production as practised by large scale producers
• demonstrate and test agricultural machinery including irrigation systems
• demonstrate farm management systems using computer software.
• promote all aspects of agriculture through publications, reports, discussions, seminars, field days and visitor programmes
• provide an on call extension service for all bona fide agriculturists and their agents.
• more recently the Trust has endeavoured to become a fully self sustaining operation.

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Initially the Trust relied on financial support from founding commodity associations, in 1993 the Trust became fully independent and charges for all its services on a full cost recovery basis, making it a fully independent agricultural research and extension institute with a financial budget designed to cover recurring operational overheads, planned capital replacement and capital development costs. 

The Trust is a non profit making institution and all proceeds are utilised to further develop the Trust.  This policy has enabled the Trust to remain self financing in extremely adverse circumstances and pursue it mandate of providing world class excellence to Zimbabwe.

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Staffing and Management

The Trust employs a Director and Six professional and technical officers supported by Three technicians and 65 junior staff who are all housed on the Trust Farm.

A non executive Board of Trustees consisting of 5 prominent farmers hold the top position and they charge the Board of Management with all executive decisions.

The Board of Management consists of an independent chairman, two independent members and the incumbent chairmen (or their nominees) of the four Commodity Associations who originally invested into the Trust. They are all farmers. The Director is an ex officio member of the Board of Management, which meets at least 6 times a year.

In the past there was close formal liaison between the staff of ART and the Technical team of the CFU who were responsible for generating research projects in consultation with their farmer members through the Commodity executives and the Commodity Council of the CFU.  This liaison still exists, however the Trust is increasingly undertaking research projects specifically for major Seed Houses and Independently funded research is not receiving the attention that it should.

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Facilities

The Trust farm at 1,500m a.m.s.l. with a mean annual rainfall of 850 mm is situated 18km due North of Harare and its southern boundary is contiguous with Harare City.  Land area is 700 ha, of which 250ha is arable.

There is a 67ha field laboratory and the balance of the area is taken up for commercial crop production. The field laboratory is served by a water ring main to provide full irrigation and there is sufficient water to irrigate in addition 55ha of commercial Winter cereal and supplement some 100ha of Summer grain crop.

There is a veldt grazing area of 320 paddocked hectares and 14 ha of irrigated fertilised pasture. The farm runs a 400 head beef unit with an offtake of 200 head of finished steers per year.

There is also a 144 sow pig unit producing 2,550 baconers per year. The Unit Practices Artificial Insemination in order to achieve optimum genetics. Practical Hands on Training is provided at nominal cost with a limited number of trainees housed on site and supervised by the Pig Unit Stockman

The Trust has drilled 30 Boreholes and has no surface water. Water is currently supplied by 21 of these boreholes.  Irrigation is supplied by double pumping from a boreholes into overnight storage reservoirs and then on to the land.  

The soils are all heavy red clay derived from epidiorite and greenstone schist and subsurface water yield and soil fertility are thus good.

Infrastructure include offices, sheds, store rooms, greenhouses, an auditorium and conference facilities, crop drying facilities, silos, farm villages and is supported by a good range of equipment, vehicles, power and water reticulation.

There is a well equipped non-residential conference centre seating 400 with a 70 seat seminar room, a 10 seat Boardroom and a kitchen.

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The 67 ha field laboratory of Class 1 soil is divided into 100 rectangular plots which form the basis of the on station research programme.

There is a small area of coffee set aside for disease research and a small plantation of Jatropha curcas for demonstration purposes. Most of the research that is done each year is annual crop variety improvement with some agronomy and machinery evaluation.

The Trust, in co-operation with willing farmers, runs an off station research programme with some 30 sites around the country for both Summer and Winter investigations.  

The Trust regularly has University and Agricultural College under graduates undergoing practical hands on training on attachment for various periods.

By 2000, 20 years after its inception, the Agricultural Research Trust was one of the best developed institutes of its kind in Africa, if not the world. It compares very favourably with the Morley Research Centre in Norfolk, England, but is able to serve a much larger area including Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and South Africa.

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