The five-year Zimbabwe Agricultural Income and Employment Development programme was officially closed last week, leaving behind a legacy and a lot of lessons that stakeholders in the smallholder agricultural sector will always cherish.

A lot of positives can be drawn from this programme which transformed previously marginalised smallholder farmers into commercially-viable and market driven entrepreneurs. Initiated in 2010 by the United States Agency for International Development, the main aim of the hugely successful initiative was to primarily increase income and food security in the country’s smallholder agriculture sector.

Increasing incomes, food security and creating employment opportunities through agricultural production remains one of the country’s key focal points as prescribed by the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-economic Transformation. Under Zim-Asset’s Food Security and Nutrition cluster, Government has a mandate to create a self-sufficient and food surplus economy.

Zimbabwe should also re-emerge as the “bread basket of Southern Africa”.

Zim-AIED served as a perfect example of how Non-Governmental organisations should work together with such stakeholders as the community, parastatals, the business community and traditional leaders.

In partnership with various stakeholders among them Agritex, the Zim-AIED programme provided technical assistance and training to smallholder farmers. Farmers were trained in good agricultural practices such as transplanting, correct fertiliser application, safe use of agrochemicals and proper grading of produce and post-harvest handling.

Apart from securing input loans for the farmers, the farmers also received training in basic skills such as record keeping for tracking their production costs.

Under the programme, farmers were linked to markets through contract farming. Most importantly, the farmers were given access to agricultural credit from financial institutions.

Smallholder farmers across the country face challenges in accessing loans as they lack adequate collateral.

As a result of the lack of credit lines, smallholder farmers end up producing low quality crops and, therefore, low yields.

Local and international studies have shown that smallholder farmers contribute immensely to the world’s agricultural food production yet they are the least equipped and face a lot of challenges to commercialise their activities.

Under Zim-AIED, farmers operating at selected irrigation schemes across the country such as Mutema and Chibuwe in Chipinge and other irrigation schemes in Honde Valley, Nyanga, Lupane and Mutare benefited immensely as they were taught how to treat their farming operations as businesses.

As a result, formerly under-utilised irrigation schemes such as Tshongokwe in Lupane, Chibuwe and Mutema among others, were turned into thriving commercial agri-business hubs.

This was done through strengthening farmers’ links with parastatals, input suppliers, marketing organisations and micro-finance institutions.

Farmers were taught how to increase the production and sales of livestock, maize and other food crops.

Under Zim-AIED, 10 000 farmers were contracted to produce livestock, food and cash crops.

According to the information availed by Zim-AIED, the programme has assisted more than 15 000 smallholder farmers across 46 irrigation scheme since 2010.

Over the past five years, the assisted beneficiaries have generated $210 million from agricultural produce such as livestock, bananas, horticultural crops, maize, groundnuts and sugar beans among other crops.

According to Zim-AIED, the average income per household for the assisted farmers increased from a baseline of $483 in 2012 to $1 725 per annum in 2014.

Through a credit facility which was facilitated by Zim-AIED in partnership with financial institutions, $2,5 million was injected into the agricultural economy, which resulted in cumulative disbursements of $15,3 million as the funds revolved. Farmers have also applauded the programme’s gender integration policy which saw 50 percent of the beneficiaries being women. Under the programme’s Farming as a Family Business training, women and the youths were encouraged to participate in farming activities.

The Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Cde David Marapira said the Zim-AIED programme compliments Government’ efforts to economically empower the smallholder farmer.

“Zim-AIED is a good example of what we are trying to achieve by empowering smallholder farmers to undertake farming as a business,” Cde Marapira said.

The Deputy Minister was speaking at the programme’s official close-out ceremony at Tshongokwe irrigation scheme in Lupane last week.

Tshongokwe is a shining example of how smallholder farmers can increase incomes and eradicate poverty through enforcing good agricultural practices.

Since the introduction of Zim-AIED, Tshongokwe farmers have managed to increase sugar bean yields from 0,7 tonnes to 2,5 tonnes per hectare and maize from three to seven tonnes per hectare.

Tomato yields were increased from less than five tonnes to more than 30 tonnes per hectare.

Zim-AIED also facilitated improved relationships between farmers and Government parastatals such as Zinwa and Zesa. Mr Enock Nkomo, a Lupane cattle farmer, however, bemoaned the closure of the programme.

“This programme improved our livelihoods. Farmers were linked to input producers, agricultural extension officers and the markets. We are going to be poor without this programme,” Mr Nkomo said.

Cattle buyers working with Zim-AIED were equally satisfied.

“As cattle buyers, we enjoyed working with the farmers. We provided them with both the cattle feed and the market,” Mr Mongameli Sinala, a cattle buying manager with a local abattoir, said.

Across the country in Makoni district in Manicaland province, communal farmers were introduced to cherry pepper production. Cherry pepper is a high-value export crop. A total of 96 farmers at Chiduku Tikwiri irrigation scheme benefited.

Farmers at Musikavanhu irrigation scheme in Chipinge received affordable lines of credit to jump-start the production of high-value crops. Financial institutions assisted farmers at the scheme with various working capital loans amounting to $42 500 for the production of sugar beans, tomatoes, paprika and onion.

Similarly, farmers at Tshovani irrigation scheme in Chiredzi were contracted to produce African Birds’ Eye chillies.

Each farmer was given input loans that included seedlings and fertilisers sufficient for a 0,5-hectare plot. Smallholder banana farmers in Honde Valley, Manicaland, also benefited from the programme.

“We used to grow low-yielding banana varieties. In addition, we did not know that bananas should be fertilised and we did not apply good agricultural practices. Since Zim-AIED came aboard, we have increased our yields significantly,” Mrs Florence Chinyanga, a Honde Valley farmer said during an interview.

More than 600 smallholder banana farmers are contracted to grow bananas as Zim-AIED partners.

Basing on the Zim-AIED results, contract farming is more profitable than the smallholder farmers’ traditional independent production as farmers have a guaranteed market for their produce.