The Zimbabwe Free Range Poultry Association (ZFRPA) is celebrating a decade of promoting sustainable poultry farming and food security in the country.
As part of its milestone celebration, ZFRPA is proud to have played a pivotal role in spearheading the Presidential Poultry Scheme under the Rural Development 8.0 initiative.
The association targets to distribute 4,5 million chicks to over 450 000 households across the country for food and nutrition security. So far more than 2.5 million chicks have been distributed across the country.
Key achievements over 10 years
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Managed to prop up the free-range chicken brand into a household brand, which is now officially acknowledged and included in the national statistics.
Established a complete free-range poultry value chain from farm to fork.
Grew free-range chicken population from 23 million in 2015 to 63 million in 2024 through advocacy and training.
Secured contracts on behalf of members to the tune of over US$30 million.
Organised group purchasing and importation of stock, feed and feed ingredients for farmers.
-In partnership with the Government and the Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ), developed the ZWS1051/2022 Code of Practice for Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) for Free Range Poultry Production in Zimbabwe.
Exhibiting at national forums such as ZITF, Zimbabwe Agricultural Show, and Food Fairs.
Trade References
Some of the projects that ZFRPA has done with various governmental and non-governmental organisations around the country.
i. Current and ongoing: In 2022 was contracted by the Government under the Presidential Rural Poultry Scheme to supply 4,5 million four-week-old birds, complete with 4. 500 tonnes of feed and 90 tonnes stress pack for 450 000 beneficiaries across the 1 500 wards in Zimbabwe.
ii. Current to Nov 2025: Pigad Zimbabwe -- supplying poultry and feed to communities in Hwedza, Murehwa, and Buhera District. Funded by Help Germany.
iii. Help Zimbabwe: Supplied 9 581 point-of-lay chickens for 871 point-of-lay farmers in Gwanda District, Zimbabwe.
iv. Practical Action: Supplied 21 000 point lay dual-purpose chickens and 74 tonnes of roadrunner Breeder Mash funded by USAID, benefiting 3 000 households in 2023 and mid-November 2024 in Chimanimani District.
v. IFAD (SIRP): supplied 50 183 point of lay birds complete with feed, medication and vaccines, for Midlands, Manicaland, Masvingo and Matabeleland South provinces.
vi. Christian Care Masvingo: Supplied over 4 320-day-old chicks (Black Australorp, Koekoek and Boschveldt) for Chivi and Zaka smallholder farmers.
vii. CAMFED Mashonaland Central: Supplied over 600 four-week-old chicks (Black Australorp and Koekoek for the Centenary communities.
viii. ENSURE Project, Manicaland: Supplied over 16 000 free-range (Boschveldt chickens), complete with feed, feeders, drinkers, and vaccinations to over 300 families in Chimanimani, Chipinge and Buhera districts of Manicaland Province.
ix. ENSURE Project Masvingo: Supplied over 9 000 free-range (Boschveld chickens) complete with feed, feeders, drinkers, vaccinations to over 100 families in Bikita, Jerera and Chivi districts of Masvingo.
x. ECRAS Chiredzi and Mwenezi districts of Masvingo: Distributed over 50 000 Boschveld chickens to over 600 families.
xi. CTDO: Distributed a total of over 12 000 birds in Mudzi, Rushinga and Mutoko areas.
xii. ACTION AID: Distributed over 2 000 birds complete with feed, vaccines, feeders and drinkers to Kariba, Binga and Mt Darwin.
xiii. Italian COSV: Bought and distributed over 6000 birds in Lupane District.
The ZFRPA is a legal entity registered in 2015 as a Trust to promote sustainable free-range poultry farming, including quail farming, value addition, and marketing.
ZFRPA's membership spans rural, urban, peri-urban, resettlement, and commercial farmers, making it a unique and inclusive model.
The association empowers women, youth and vulnerable groups, addressing poverty, improving household incomes and enhancing food and nutrition security.
It commercialises indigenous and pure-breed chickens, quails, ducks, turkeys and guinea fowls, aiming to make free-range poultry and quails the bird of choice in Zimbabwe and beyond.
ZFRPA has over 5 700 registered members (80 percent women and youth) and connects with over 100 000 farmers via over 120 WhatsApp groups across Zimbabwe.
The association has an outreach of more than 250 000 farmers through the Presidential Poultry Scheme.
With its head office strategically located in Harare, ZFRPA is poised for nationwide expansion. Plans are underway to establish provincial offices, enabling the association to increase its reach and impact.
The association conducts capacity-building in free-range poultry production, disease management, business management and feed formulation with support from the SAZ, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and industry experts.
The association also facilitates market linkages and establishes participatory guarantee systems to ensure quality and ethical production for local and international markets.
The ZFRPA is led by the Chairperson Mr Golden Aaron Shamu, who provides strategic direction and oversight. The day-to-day operations of the association are managed by the ZFRPA Secretariat, headed by the Chief executive officer Mrs Beauty Jiji, who is supported by a team of dedicated full-time staff. This structure enables ZFRPA to effectively serve its members, promote the interests of poultry farmers and drive growth and development in the industry. The association aims to bring all interested farmers and value chain actors from across the divide of Zimbabwe together to produce free range poultry in a sustainable, conventional or organic manner and commercialise the free-range poultry industry.
The overall goal of the association is to enhance food security, nutrition and household incomes through sustainable commercialisation of free-range poultry and quail across all households in Zimbabwe and beyond.
Vision
"To make the free-range poultry including quails the bird of choice in Zimbabwe and beyond"
Mission
The ZFRPA mission is to improve the livelihoods of its members, value chain actors and the communities through promotion of sustainable free-range poultry and quails' production, value addition and marketing in a properly structured manner and nurturing the growth of these ventures from subsistence to commercial levels."
Core values
ZFRPA is guided by the following values and principles:
a. Honesty and integrity;
b. Transparency and accountability;
c. Socio-environmental responsibility;
d. Teamwork, trust and respect for one another;
e. Tolerance and commitment;
f. Innovation;
g. Learning and growth
ZFRPA Services
Lobbying and advocacy
Technical training and support services
Market linkages
Communication and information generation and dissemination
Networking
Standardisation, monitoring and quality assurance
Representation of members at all levels
Objectives and focus areas
i. To economically, socially and environmentally empower its members through sustainable commercialisation of their free-range poultry and quails.
ii. To enhance sustainable integrated agricultural and free-range poultry and quail production through improved access to knowledge systems, access to funding, management and the market linkages of quality conventional and organic free-range poultry, including quail and products.
iii. To effectively facilitate and participate in the development of the key free-range poultry, quails, poultry and quail products value chains and the respective actors along the value chains in the free-range poultry sector of Zimbabwe.
iv. To facilitate the organisation and development of free-range poultry and quail producers across Zimbabwe into self-managing and self-monitoring production units that ensure quick internal technical and business development support, quality end products to the market and effective information dissemination.
v. To identify and facilitate well-coordinated and collective free-range poultry, quails, and quails' products (conventional and organic) supply chain to local, regional and international markets consistently and within set world quality standards.
Business Models
The association has different business models to support its wider membership across the divide as they fill in gaps along the value chain, namely: Conventional /free range poultry, Zimbabwe Natural Free-Range Poultry and Zimbabwe Organic Free-Range Poultry labels.
a. Conventional/free range poultry
Farmers under this category:
Have the traditional indigenous and/or pure poultry breed, which are free-range,
use the conventional feeds, veterinary medicines and -grow supplementary feeds using commercial fertilisers and chemicals. The free-range poultry products will be marketed under the Zimbabwe Conventional Poultry Label
b. Zimbabwe Natural Free-Range Poultry
Under this category, the farmers are in transit to organic poultry production and practice the following:
Have free-range indigenous poultry breeds, but are introducing improved pure breeds for either egg or meat production
Have a well-planned conversion period to organic poultry production-poultry are free-ranging and scavenging
Use ethno-veterinary medicines mostly
can feed with conventional feeds during the transition.
c. Zimbabwe Organic Free-Range Poultry Labels
The farmers under this category have:
certified organic poultry production systems in place and are practicing
gone over the conversion period
used improved breeds and local indigenous poultry in their system
conservation systems in place
improved ecosystem
Poultry are free range and are supplemented with organic feeds and organically produced supplements such as earthworms and maggots, lucerne and berries, plus vegetables, among others.
Use ethno vet medicines for disease control
Care for the poultry and the environment
Have organic production as a lifestyle
Poultry being promoted by ZFRPA
The association is promoting the following poultry types: free-range, traditional and pure breeds chicken, ducks, turkeys and guinea fowls. ZFRPA encourages its membership to start off with the existing local breeds and maintain a separate flock so that it does not become extinct.
To improve the local breeds and quality of products, under the free-range chickens, the ZFRPA is promoting pure breeds and will facilitate access to pure breed chicks and fertilised eggs to its membership through organised egg importation, hatchery systems and breeding.
The following are the pure breeds being promoted:
SECOND TABLE HERE
Membership
The membership consists of bona fide free-range poultry farmers or value chain actors, who have a passion or are practicing or promoting free-range poultry and quails production, be it through Conventional or organic systems, who register and sign an application form with the association and are admitted after approval as members or associates.
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All citizens of Zimbabwe are eligible to be association members regardless of their political affiliations. The members shall be 18 years and above and are ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe or Zimbabweans in the diaspora.
Membership shall not be limited by gender or age, tribe, race and social standing, as long as one is allowed to associate (as expounded by the country's Constitution), they can become a member. No person shall be a member of the association while being a member of another association having the same objectives.
Members shall be bona fide farmers or key value chain players/actors in the free-range poultry, quails, poultry and quails products value chains.
Membership consists of male and female adults and sometimes the business is run at a family level. Membership also includes young people and vulnerable group members such as widows/widowers, orphans, the elderly, disabled, among others.
Membership categories and classification
The membership categories are as follows:
Individuals or couples, students, associate/affiliate organisations/institutions and corporate members
Benefits of ZFRPA membership
i. Capacity building - training, access to appropriate technology and finance.
ii. Group marketing - aggregation or bulking and linkages to local, regional and international markets
iii. Information dissemination - members get up-to-date free-range poultry sector information through various platforms and media products
iv. Inputs and service discounts - ZFRPA cardholder members get discounts through value chain actors and key stakeholders
v. Group importation and purchasing - to access key free-range poultry inputs, equipment and technology not readily available in Zimbabwe.
vi. Networking - members can network through various ZFRPA platforms and activities
ZFRPA partners
The organisation's partners include, among others, the Government, development partners, private sector involved in agriculture, research institutions, poultry inputs and equipment/implements manufacturers/suppliers, financial institutions, insurance companies, ICT providers, policy makers, media and the transport sector.
Partnerships are formalised through signing MOUs and MOAs. Further, specific projects are jointly implemented through specific agreements.
ZFRPA works closely with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and was launched by the ministry in 2015.
ZFRPA has reached agreements and/or signed MOAs with the following:
Grain Marketing Board/Country Feeds - signed MoA
-Silo Foods Industries
-Capital Feeds - agreement on discounts for members exists
ZFRPA is a member or collaborates with the following organisations:
-Livestock and Meat Advisory Council (LMAC) of Zimbabwe
Standard Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ)
Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA)
