The Sunday Mail
Tanyaradzwa Kutaura and Natasha Kokai
Farmers are cheering Government’s move to distribute farming inputs timeously and provide uninterrupted power supplies, saying this primes the sector for continued growth.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) president Mr Wonder Chabikwa told The Sunday Mail last week that farmers are prepared for the 2017-2018 summer cropping season.
He also said predictable producer prices put the industry in good stead.
Of late, there has been record production of tobacco and solid recovery in cotton output.
Notwithstanding challenges with inputs distribution during the 2017-2018 summer cropping season, maize deliveries have been strong, as 900 000 tonnes had been delivered to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) by September 12.
“Farmers received all required inputs on time and are now prepared, thanks to the Command Agriculture initiative.
“Farmers now know the (producer) prices of all crops, even before they start planting, unlike in the past when the commodities were bought by anyone and prices were not fixed,” said Mr Chabikwa.
“The summer season has already started, with irrigated tobacco transplanting having started as required by the legislation on the 1st of September. So far, everything is good. This crop is almost 100 percent contract, meaning inputs are supplied by contractors.
“The situation has improved as compared to previous seasons where we experienced power cuts. For now, there are no power cuts, except when there are mechanical faults,” he said.
According to Mr Chabikwa, there is still need for Government to help farmers, particularly wheat farmers, access loans to resuscitate their irrigation infrastructure, especially in view of the volatile weather conditions.
“We are facing a season where the weather forecast is talking about normal to below normal, and from our experience, when they talk about that, we are looking at below normal. That is why we need to have money, suitable loaning facilities meant to resuscitate the existing irrigation equipment to beat this.
“Once we have done that, we have automatically increased our winter wheat and reduced our wheat import bill, because farmers who would have managed to revamp the irrigation would want to use it twice a year – in summer and winter,” he said.
Farmers, he added, could benefit immensely if Government considered cloud seeding.
Red flags over tobacco
While tobacco farmers have reportedly made commendable progress in preparing for the 2018-2019 cropping season, there are concerns some farmers haven’t destroyed tobacco stalks, which usually leads to unwanted disease outbreaks.
Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) chief executive officer Mr Rodney Ambrose said it is worrying that although the deadline for destroying stalks passed on May 15, there are still thousands of hectares with tobacco stalks.
“There are already outbreaks of aphids and other diseases in tobacco seedbeds and prepared lands. The responsible authorities, TIMB (Tobacco Industry Marketing Board), contractors and growers need to urgently address this issue,” he said.
The industry promotion body is also concerned over failure by the TIMB to tap into the $30 million afforestation levy to minimise the environmental impact of using wood to cure the crop.
For the past four seasons, farmers have been levied 0,75 percent of their gross proceeds to support the fund.
Mr Ambrose added: “If reforestation programmes are not urgently embarked on, alternate curing fuels identified, more wood efficient curing barns build and centralised curing facilities invested in, rates of deforestation are going to increase. This will have an impact on the ecosystems, climate and tobacco production.”
ZTA also contends that tobacco farmers need to be treated as exporters and paid part of their proceeds in foreign currency.
This, Mr Ambrose said, will help them buy imported inputs.
“The RBZ 12,5 percent tobacco incentive, plus additional support from some contractors, have incentivised farmers to prepare for another season. However, there is a need for dependency from these institutions to improve viability and as a start, access to real US dollar would help greatly. With seasonal declines in tobacco prices paid to growers, increased local costs of production and variable yields, many growers are left with seasonal financing owed to tobacco contractors,” he said.
This year, tobacco farmers delivered a record 250 million kilogrammes of tobacco, which surpassed the previous all-time record of 237 million kgs that was achieved in 2000.
Statistics from industry regulator, TIMB, shows that the trend might continue.
As at September 13 this year, the number of registered tobacco farmers had increased by 43 percent to 112 743 from 79 017 in the same period a year earlier.
The number of new farmers also rose from 23 000 in 2017 to 27 000 this year.
Further, as at September 7, seed sales rose to 910 853 grammes from to 863 455 grammes during the same period last year.
Similarly, cotton production is also expected to continue trekking northwards.
Government has already indicated that it will continue giving farmers free inputs over the next three years.
Focus, it seems, has now turned to improving yields per plant.
More than 40 000 hectares will be put under production of the white gold.
Cottco managing director Mr Pious Manamike said farming training programmes will be intensified.
“There will be extensive countrywide training for farmers by our extension officers on getting the correct plant population and better yields per plant.
“We are targeting to cover 400 000 hectares and this will be supported by 8 000 tonnes of seed, 40 000 tonnes of compound L basal fertiliser, 20 000 tonnes of CAN top-dressing fertiliser and an assortment of chemicals to cover the hectares targeted,” he said.
