Power outages threaten Zimbabwe agriculture
13 October, 2011 16:44
Patrick Musira
Incessant electricity load-shedding is threatening the future of Zimbabwe’s
newly resettled farmers, beneficiaries of the government’s land reform
programme, with the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union saying the
unscheduled and lengthy power cuts are pushing some of their members out of
business, besides making local farm produce uncompetitive on the market.
The mostly black ZCFU say they also fear another petrol bomb attack on their
members as the power utility has threatened to disconnect those with arrears
on their electricity bills.
A source at the farmers’ offices told I-Net Bridge/BusinessLIVE that the
planned tariff hike by the electricity utility Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority (ZESA) would have “an adverse effect on our farming operations as
farmers have to turn to diesel or even petrol standby generators to run
their operations due to the constant unannounced load-shedding”.
“We’re now fighting on several fronts – unscheduled power cuts, increasingly
frequent blackouts, as well as increased tariffs. All this in addition to
the low prices for our commodities on the market due to the flood of
imported produce, mostly from SA, is a challenge,” the source moaned.
But the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC),
a division of ZESA, has moved in to allay fears of a looming disaster with
commercial manager Richard Katsande telling I-Net Bridge/BusinessLIVE
“nothing has so far been finalised with regards to disconnections”.
“We’re still in discussions with the farmers and other stakeholders on the
issue of clearing arrears,” said Katsande after the recent 17th ZCFU
congress.
Katsande, speaking on behalf of his managing director, said: “We will chalk
out our future course of action and inform farmers thereafter. We’re also
discussing debt payment plans especially with the tobacco farmers’ stop
order scheme.”
He also took time to describe the challenges ZESA was facing and measures
they are taking to address these challenges.
“ZETDC has already put a winter wheat power supply scheme into action,” he
said.