COMMENT: Let us invest more on producing cereals

AT some point, the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (Arda) was a shell of an entity.
Its 21 farms dotted around the country and measuring 98 000 hectares were fallow and equipment on them rusting away. Since no production was going on, there was no money to pay workers. Those that secured alternative opportunities left and those that didn’t stayed on, unpaid and disgruntled.

The Government did not see the need for it to use scarce public funds to reboot the entity. Or it noted the parastatal’s potential to use its intrinsic asset — the 98 000ha, 19 000ha of which is irrigable — to generate the necessary value, thus thought it unwise to pump public money in. Authorities were right on both counts. Indeed, there was no need to rely on the fiscus to attempt to revive Arda amid competing needs and also that the entity had potential to attract private money to get it back working.

So in 2014, the Government decided to invite the private sector to invest in reviving Arda estates on the basis of long leases. After two or so seasons, the initiative brought life back to Antelope Estate in Matabeleland South, Balu in Matabeleland North, Katiyo in Manicaland, Fair Acre in Midlands and others.

The revival is being intensified, Arda board chairperson, Mr Ivan Craig said, as we reported yesterday. The parastatal is now playing its role of promoting food security, creating jobs and nurturing rural industries through local value addition. Last season, he said, Arda produced 12 400 tonnes of cereals through the private-public partnerships (PPPs) initiated in 2014 as well as through own operations.

“Our target going forward is to produce 500 000 tonnes of cereals this year,” said Mr Craig.
The Government’s decision at Arda was a masterstroke which highlights the usefulness of mutually beneficial partnerships between business and the Government. The value that had been idle is now being utilised. Communities around the estates are benefiting through infrastructural development the investors are making, through securing jobs, through easier access to food and so on.

We appreciate that not all Arda estates are producing cereals — Balu is doing pecan nuts for example, Katiyo is producing tea and coffee. But cereals are the national staples. We therefore, think that the 12 400 tonnes of the grains Arda harvested last year widely understates its immense potential. We want more, and Mr Craig told us so as well.

Considering that the State-owned company has 19 000ha of irrigable land, it must be fairly easy for it to harvest 500 000 tonnes of cereals. To be realistic however, 500 000 tonnes of cereals could be a little too ambitious just a year after it reaped 12 400 tonnes of the food crops. In the next few seasons of consistent and hard work, more investment and scaling up, perhaps by 2028, the target would be achieved. That is about the cereals. We urge more investment in higher value, export-oriented crops and products such as pecan and macadamia nuts, tea and coffee, milk et cetera. At the same time, we want the model adopted by Trek — the private company that is leasing Antelope Estate — to be replicated across the board. Trek announced recently it was investing large sums of money to build wheat and maize milling plants. That is embracing the whole value chain, from farm to fork, as they say.