Source: 2017, year of agricultural recovery | Herald (Opinion)

Elita Chikwati Senior Reporter
The 2017 agricultural year will be remembered as a year of restoration — a year when farmers’ hard work was rewarded and their confidence, which had suffered due to lack of funding, coupled with consecutive droughts, was restored.

The year was characterised by an increase in food production, harvest and deliveries to the Grain Marketing Board thanks to the good rains, Government’s intervention through input programmes such as Command Agriculture, the Presidential Inputs Scheme, self-financed farmers and the public-private partnership schemes.

These all contributed to Zimbabwe attaining food self-sufficiency.
With the introduction of the Special Maize for Import Substitution Programme, popularly known as Command Agriculture, and expansion of the Presidential Inputs Scheme to cotton and soyabeans, the agriculture sector is now on a permanent footing and most stakeholders in the industry are confident that country will soon regain its status as the bread basket of Africa.

Command Agriculture, a brainchild of the Government, rescued thousands of farmers who would have failed to productively use their land owing to funding challenges. During the 2017 marketing season, farmers delivered over 1,2 million tonnes of maize, and according to President Mnangagwa, this is 40 percent of what was produced.

Due to the success of the programme, Command Agriculture received an overwhelming response from farmers and many more wanted to join the programme during the 2017/18 season. As at December, over 46 404 farmers had been contracted to plant 219 000 hectares of maize with 53 330ha under irrigation and the remainder under dryland.

Buoyed by the success achieved to date by the food security initiative, Command Agriculture, Government has now expanded the crop portfolio to include wheat, soyabeans and livestock.

The increase in soyabeans and wheat production is expected to reduce the import bill. Zimbabwe had become a net importer of wheat and if the 200 000 tonnes of wheat expected yield is attained, the country will save about $100 million in imports. Command soyabeans in an important input in agroprocessing, especially in the manufacturing of cooking oil and stockfeeds and will also go a long in reducing the cooking oil import bill.

Command Agriculture Livestock

Government also launched the Command Livestock, Fisheries and Wildlife Programme which is expected to run between three and five years. Livestock farmers from all sectors — communal to A2 and institutions including churches, prisons and police farms across the country — are expected to benefit.

The programme will cover all aspects of livestock such as beef cattle, dairy cows, pigs, sheep, goats, fish, wildlife and small stock such as poultry and rabbits. The fund will also go towards foot-and-mouth disease fences, resuscitation and establishment of dip tanks, watering points and livestock infrastructure. The programme is to improve the supply of animal-based products to meet national food and nutritional needs and be competitive enough to meet export market requirements.

In the process, Command Livestock is expected to address national nutritional food and non-food industries, thereby creating jobs, income streams and growing the agricultural economy. Farmers, as primary producers, will access loans with three to five years tenure at a modest all-inclusive interest rate of four percent.

Command recoveries
Command Agriculture loan recoveries are at 66 percent for maize with Government having received $47,4 million from farmers against an anticipated target of $72 million.

For wheat, loan recoveries are still underway with recoveries standing at $3,6 million against target of $8,8 million as at November 23.

Government has put measures to ensure effective delivery of the inputs under Command Agriculture. These include strengthening of the inputs control and distribution systems, as well as monitoring mechanisms at every stage of the supply and distribution of inputs that way assisting plug potential leakages of agriculture inputs. Government is also following up on reports of abuse and sale of inputs by beneficiaries and those who abused the inputs will be dealt with.

Presidential Inputs Scheme
In 2017, Government increased support to farmers under the Presidential Inputs Scheme from 800 000 last year to 1,8 million. Maize farmers received input packs of 10 kilogrammes of seed, or 5kg sorghum and 50kg basal fertiliser and 50kg top dressing fertiliser.

The impact of the Presidential Inputs Scheme was felt more in the cotton sector which was on the verge of collapse. Four hundred thousand farmers in cotton growing areas received seed, chemicals and fertilisers. Revival of cotton production stands to resuscitate the cotton to clothing value chain. This is over and above improving livelihoods of rural cotton farmers most of whom live in the rural areas.

Cotton farmers were given free inputs and Cottco bought the commodity at a price of 47 cents per kilogramme, which most described as viable. Farmers who delivered grade A crop are now receiving price adjustments.

Due to Government’s intervention, the cotton output rose from 10 800 tonnes in 2015/16 season to 54 000 tonnes in 2016/17 season and is expected to be 72 000 in 2017/18 season. The sector was however affected by rampant side marketing as Cottco did not have ready cash to pay farmers.

The practice was rampant in border lying areas of Mashonaland Central where farmers side-marketed the crop to Mozambique where cash was available. Locally, they paid mainly through mobile network operator Econet’s EcoCash platform. Some of the affected farmers said there was poor Econet network in their areas and could not transact using EcoCash, while others said retailers in the area refused to accept the payment method. The use of EcoCash was also new to most farmers, who did not understand how the whole process worked.

Some of the farmers had to climb on to trees to be able to get network connection and carry out transactions, while the elderly people did not even understand how to transact using the system and had to seek assistance from other people, which is not safe as it involves disclosing their secret access numbers.

Tobacco
The tobacco sector continued to thrive with farmers producing 188 million kilogrammes of the golden leaf valued at more than $560 million. There are few challenges in the sector as the bulk of the crop is produced under contract farming where farmers receive inputs, technical advice and high prices during the marketing season.

There were some challenges during the marketing season as cash shortages affected farmers. Farmers were not willing to use plastic money and this resulted in them staying at the floors for days as they waited to get cash from banks.

Farmers also complained of irregularities at the auction floors. The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board failed to launch the e-marketing system it had promised. The electronic auctioning of tobacco was meant to reduce the processing time for grower payments and eliminates illicit floor activities that disadvantaged farmers.

The bulk of the tobacco had been sold under contract and few farmers were now selling through auction floors. This threatened the auction floors. Government this year came up with a $20 million loan facility to benefit small-scale tobacco growers and ensure auction floors remain functional.

Government has also come up with other initiatives such as mechanising agriculture through provision of irrigation equipment.

Funds have been set aside to boost agriculture productivity at a disaggregated level. In this regard, Government is expected to harness irrigation potential and ensure maximum utilisation of existing idle water bodies.

Resources have so far been availed towards irrigation rehabilitation and development, with at least 200 hectares per district targeted to be implemented annually for the next 10 years.

With the anticipated improvement of productivity in cropping, Government has also put in place measures to increase harvesting capacity, through the importation of combine harvesters, driers and other agricultural equipment.

Land issues
Government through Agriculture, Lands and Rural Resettlement Minister Chief Air Marshal Perrance Shiri (Rtd) has ordered illegally resettled farmers to vacate the land immediately to ensure sanity on farms if agriculture is to be the mainstay of the economy.

Only those people with documentation of land occupancy and or those who were allocated land legitimately should remain on the farms and concentrate on production unhindered.

The Surveyor-General is also expected to work around the clock to survey the resettled land and properly demarcate boundaries.

Offer letters and 99-year leases issued by Government carry the same weight and are not discriminatory in any manner. This move has restored confidence in most farmers who were afraid of investing on their farms.

The agriculture sector was singled out by President Mnangagwa and charged with the important responsibility to be the engine for socio-economic recovery and growth in Zimbabwe.