ZIMBABWE’S prospects of achieving a bumper harvest in the current summer cropping season appear gloomy due to rising prices of inputs, the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) warns.
DUMISANI NYONI
With year-on-year inflation gradually rising during the third quarter, as the domestic currency loses ground against the United States dollar, experts have expressed concern that millions may be left food insecure in the coming year.
“Preparedness for the 2021/22 farming season has got many challenges as it stands right now. The first one being cost of inputs, they are exorbitant due to fluctuations as a result of the parallel market rates, as well as the artificial rates,” ZCFU president Shadreck Makombe told The NewsHawks.
A 10 kilogramme bag of maize seed costs about US$30 on the market. Makombe said farmers were forced to buy fuel using foreign currency, while they sell their produce in local currency.
“Already, it means you are selling using the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe rate, yet you are expected to go and buy using the parallel market rate. Already, before you have done anything, there is a disparity, a loss,” he said.
“Fuel is a challenge right now, the RTGS fuel which farmers would want to have is not yet readily available, but the rains have already started falling. There should be RTGS fuel on the market in order to ameliorate this,” he said.
Makombe said money was too expensive on the market and very few can afford it from the financiers. In the past, farmers would use their land as collateral to access funding from banks, but the existing 99-year leases given to new farmers have been rejected by banks.
“Given the situation, farmers should be in full swing in terms of preparation for the summer season, but without tilling the land, we cannot talk of any other preparations. Even in terms of inputs like fertilizers the prices are out of the reach for many,” he said.
“To make matters worse, wheat which was meant to have been harvested is still in the field and with these rains a lot of farmers may suffer huge losses.”
“As it stands, it’s only those farmers who are standalone, but they are however not in the majority. They are the ones now who are in a position to have started preparing but most of the farmers are still grappling with these challenges,” Makombe said.
However, Makombe said there is still enough time for everything to be put in place in terms of inputs and fuel.
“It’s not all that late except, of course, for long variety crops which need to be irrigated. It might be a bit too late. So we expect all stakeholders to put their heads together for the farmer to succeed because farming is the livelihood of the economy. Without farming we are not talking of anything,” he said.
“When it comes to wheat which I have mentioned, you should realise that the same fields which the wheat is on are the very fields which are meant for summer crops. So the longer it takes for wheat to be harvested, the more challenging it is for other summer crops to also be worked upon. It also hinges on the input as well.”
He said transport cost is also another challenge the farmers face.
“So at the end of the day, the whole purpose of being in farming, we are saying we are doing it as a business, but if farmers cannot realise profits from their produce, we may just say bye-bye to commercial farming and then people will resort to subsistence farming. But all this can be obviated by pro-action and people quickly reacting to address the challenges which are mushrooming,” he said.
As for the irrigated tobacco, Makombe said farmers were in full swing.
