Mr Chabikwa
Elita Chikwati: Senior Agriculture Reporter
Government’s Command Agriculture Programme appears to be more viable to farmers than contract farming sponsored by private companies, hence the increase in demand for the programme.Enquiries on Command winter cropping have already started and many farmers have expressed their willingness to participate. They said although there was need for some fine tuning of Command Agriculture especially on the timely distribution of inputs, the programme was more empowering than being contracted by private companies.
Under Command, farmers said they could still continue after being weaned off from the programme while some private merchants turned farmers into perpetual dependants.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Mr Wonder Chabikwa yesterday said farmers were better off under Command Agriculture next season.
“Contractors have been short-changing farmers for the past years. In most cases they give farmers inadequate inputs and demand the whole crop at the end of the season leaving farmers impoverished.
“In some cases the inputs prices are high such that farmers will have their debts carried forward to another season and they will never become independent. Contractors buy the crop and peg prices. Farmers are price takers and do not have any say.
“Command farming is the best way of supporting farmers and should be spread to other crops other than maize,” he said.
Zimbabwe Indigenous Women Farmers’ Association Trust president Mrs Depinah Nkomo concurred with Mr Chabikwa.
She said farmers have bad experiences with private contractors especially in cotton.
“Private contractors hike inputs prices and in most cases farmers have lost their property to the companies after failing to pay back loans. “We cannot compare the two systems. Some of the private contractors are conmen who take advantage of desperate farmers. The contracts are not clear and in most cases farmers lose out,” she said,
Mrs Nkomo, however, said Government should ensure farmers had a full package of inputs at the start of the programme.
“We have not received top dressing fertiliser and I hope in future we will get the full package at the onset of the season,” she said.
Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union director Mr Prince Kuipa said farmers have always had challenges with some private contractors because they charged interest on inputs.
“Most contractors get their funding from banks and some charge interest on inputs. This will be added to the costs and in the end the farmer will pay high prices for the inputs and the arrangement becomes unviable. We have had challenges in cotton and tobacco.
“Command Agriculture has excellent principles. However, there is need to improve input distribution. We have received complains of fertiliser shortages. Farmers end up delaying some operations and this compromises yields. If everything is received on time, it becomes viable,” he said.
Mr Kuipa said Command Agriculture should also be flexible in terms of yield expectations as farmers belonged to different agro-ecological regions which had varying yield potential.
He said there should not be a blanket minimum of five tonnes as other regions had high potential than others.
“This should also apply to inputs. We hope in the next seasons, farmers can carry out soil tests and be given inputs according to soil requirements,” he said.
Command Agriculture is a cost recovery scheme that was introduced by Government to substitute importation of maize. This production programme targeted both A1 and A2 farmers as well as Government institutional farms, particularly those near water bodies.
Farmers were provided with seed, herbicides and fertilisers, among other inputs.
The programme targets to produce two million tonnes of maize under 400 000 hectares of land country- wide.