daniel chigunweOliver Kazunga
Wheat farmers have reportedly expressed concern over delayed payment for the crop delivered to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) late last year.
Although Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary, Professor Obert Jiri this week said: “Payments are on-going. The funds are being processed,” farmers insisted the delayed payment had affected their operations.
In Zimbabwe, wheat production is funded through various schemes such as Government funded initiatives where institutions like the Agricultural Finance Corporation provides financing to farmers.
Further, the private sector has participated in winter wheat production where institutions like CBZ Bank and Stanbic Bank have provided loans for the production of the crop.
Last year, the country produced a record high of 563 961 tonnes against a national requirement of 360 000 tonnes annually, gravitating towards self-reliance.
The 2024 wheat yield was achieved from 119 594 hectares that were planted compared to 91 000 ha in 2023 from which 467 905 tonnes were achieved.
The Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) president, Dr Shadreck Makombe said: “Farmers are really in a desperate situation because of the none-payment of the wheat deliveries which they made.
“Moreso, you would find its impacting negatively on the summer crops because that money was wanted for farmers to retool, buy inputs, equipment and so forth, so given the situation it’s really a desperate situation. They should do something to expedite the payment and things are not well for farmers.”
Dr Makombe said the obtaining situation has been exacerbated by the fact that many of the farmers had borrowed from financial institutions and thus the loans were attracting penalty interests for not being serviced.
Under normal situations, the farmers were supposed to have been paid soon after deliveries were made to GMB.
“This is quite bad because you would find that the many farmers would have borrowed from the banks, attracting interest rates and these interests need to be paid and they will be skyrocketing so any semblance of some profit which was meant to be due to farmers is eroded, meaning that farmers’ effort would have gone to waste, and farmers will be discouraged to continue in that trend of farming to feed the nation,” he said.
“GMB is telling us it has not received the money from the Treasury that’s why they are not paying — it’s really a challenge hence we would need private players to also come into play so that at least we can have something outside these other arrangements which are causing suffering and . . .”
One of the farmers who were funded under the AFC scheme told this publication that they were pleading with the Treasury for the payment of deliveries.
“Once again, we find ourselves in the total hands of the Treasury not paying GMB for wheat delivered.
“The domino effect of this is huge — we cannot pay any creditors-seed, chemicals, fertiliser, fuel, ZEDTC (Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company), monthly wages for our farmers and the list goes on.
“These creditors have carried us in some cases for up to 210 days and it is grossly unfair on all sides for them and us to incur none-payment for our hard work to keep agriculture and our food security alive,” said a farmer on condition of anonymity.
Efforts to get a comment from GMB and Treasury were unsuccessful.
Online Reporter