Mr Zakariya
Obert Chifamba Manicaland Bureau
The Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU) is working with farmers in Manicaland in a programme dubbed “Inclusive Policy Dialogue for Social Development” that seeks to analyse how current agricultural policies impact on productivity. ZFU executive director Mr Paul Zakariya yesterday said they were focusing on three key areas – land tenure security, cost of compliance in the beef industry and the need to resuscitate the horticulture sector in the province.
“We are engaging farmers at ward level and so far we have covered districts such as Mutasa, Nyanga, Buhera, Chipinge and Mutare,” he said. “We are now moving to Makoni. We work with 100 farmers in every ward. Our hope is that those farmers will also educate their peers, so we are counting on the ripple effect.”
The programme was started in January last year. Mr Zakariya said ZFU was greatly concerned over the sad reality that instead of making farmers’ business easy and enjoyable, some policies were making it difficult for them to prosper and improve their livelihoods. He said Government needed to urgently address land security tenure, which had seen many farmers failing to fully commit their resources on the farms they got under the land reform programme.
“Farmers need even just some title deeds, an offer letter or the 99-year leases to be able to feel secure and start investing,” said Mr Zakariya. “As it is, most farmers do not have anything to show for their being owners of the pieces of land they are working on, so they can not attract meaningful investment to their farms.
“They cannot develop critical infrastructure, as they fear they can be pushed out any time.” On cost of compliance in the beef industry, Mr Zakariya said laws governing the sale of animals made the process so tedious and costly that farmers ended up shelving plans to sell their stock or end up selling them for a song.
“Beef farmers have to pay the veterinary services people for some inspection, then the police for clearance, then the rural district councils and many other service providers, which in the end corrodes the expected profits well before the animal is sold,” he said.
“Buyers, on the other hand, are always preying on the desperate farmers, which leaves beef farming very unattractive. It can only start to make sense if some of the regulations are relaxed or are enforced by one service provider, if possible.” Mr Zakariya challenged Government to review policies on horticulture, saying Manicaland province was gifted with the perfect climate for horticultural activities. He said there was no support to the farmers from the policy side to set up the right marketing environment for horticultural products.
“Manicaland boasts an agro-ecological region 1 climate that is best for fruit, flower, potato and even plantation farming, to name just a few, but the farmers cannot penetrate lucrative markets because of an information void on where they can find them. Government needs to be involved in this respect through the right marketing policies,” said Mr Zakariya.