I believe the Harare Agricultural Show is not for kids. The Harare Agricultural show which ran from the 27th of September to the 2nd of October 2021 marks the 111th edition of the iconic exhibition. Its one of those great occasions one would look forward to both professionals and non professionals. To my surprise I still meet people, grown ups to be precise who say I don’t go to the Show because its for kids. Well I can’t argue with that but, tell me all those banks, telecoms companies, tech companies, the ministries, farms, etc dedicate a week of their precious time to just entertain kids, come-on. There is more to it than what meets the eye, here are some of my thoughts.

🔨Career guidance

Well that’s how I did it back in the days. Thanks to my parents who taught me this from a very young age. I remember we used to go to the Harare Agricultural Show for two reasons. One we had to talk to different exhibitors at their stands about how I can get an attachment, we asked what they do and what studies they did to do what they do and also to know what their organizations do. On top of that we had to go to the various University stands and ask what their intake processes was like. The second reason was fun of course. We made it a point to always have a souvenir for every Agricultural Show we attended. The Harare Agricultural Show is a place were you get to see many professionals at one place and many companies too, show casing their unique products and services. Career guidance is defined as the guidance given to individuals to help them acquire the right knowledge and information necessary to identify a better fit career. The Agricultural Show helped with that. The Zimbabwean education system does not do a very good job when it comes to career guidance thus the ingenuity. If you are a student! No problem, back in the day students where charged a subsidized entrance fee alone this shows the relevance and significance of value one gets from just attending the event.

💡Source of Ideas

The Harare Agricultural Show is a place where you might get ideas as businesses are grouped at that one place. As I have stated before we used to go to as many stands as possible trying to find out what these companies are exhibiting at the show. All the innovations happening around the country will be presented as these companies will be trying to sell their products to the masses. Consider this to be an innovation hub for the whole of Zimbabwe. Very few companies would not exhibit at the Harare Agricultural Show so most companies would try by all means to spread their new products to the market through networking with clients and professionals in a very unique way. You get to see what is possible what is being done on the Zimbabwean landscape and it might give you ideas to copy or borrow. Some times news ideas come form combining existing one to form something new. There is also sharing of ideas ethically and unethically – yes others share openly and others steal – competition will be observing what is happening in the market and also monitoring trends so as to improve their services as well. It really sparks the mind with ideas because every business wants to steal the show to impress its clients.

🔗Networking

networking is the action or process of interacting with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts. One of the places to meet business people and companies that might help you business wise in Zimbabwe is definitely the Harare Agricultural Show. Believe me even professionals want to got to the Show and do you know why? It’s easy to network at the Show with any company of your choice as people are more welcoming and you get to meet as many organizations as possible. To be honest you can cover a lot of stands in a single day, later alone the duration of the show is one week, so basically you have the chance to meet many companies in Zimbabwe for a period of one week. It is also the duty of the exhibitors to find new business so they are over welcoming and more open to most questions. The saying goes “no man is an island”, we need others for survival and the truth holds for our careers, we easily do well in our respective occupations when we have a strong reliable network.

So don’t be blinded by the entertainment at the Agricultural Show and think that the organizers had kids only in mind, actually business comes first then the entertainment. Though the entertainment is good as it is a good and unique way of getting away from the everyday hustles, here is what I would like you to do. View the entertainment as a complimentary culture to the actual benefits businesses enjoy by attending the Harare Agricultural Show.

If you had stopped attending the Agric Show because of any reasons other than it is for kids and people go there to play share it in the comment section below. We might as well learn one or two things, and I hope we meet at next year’s edition.