Editorial Comment: Banks must continue to support farmers

This summer cropping season Zimbabwe received above normal rains in most parts of the country although in some areas the rains came late. Most areas are therefore expecting a bumper harvest of maize and other crops. Farmers this season put 2,2 million hectares under cereal crops and maize is accounting for the bulk of the hectarage.

According to the first round of crop and livestock assessment report presented to Cabinet last month, the hectarage under maize rose to 1,6 million hectares in the 2013-2014 season compared to 1,4 million hectares the previous season. The country is therefore likely to meet its food requirement of 1,4 million tonnes of grain and even have surplus for export.

This year’s good harvest is attributed to good rains as well as availability of inputs from government. Zimbabwe’s economy is agro-based and therefore a good harvest will impact positively on the economy. The manufacturing industry depends largely on the agricultural sector for its raw materials so a good harvest means a boost for the manufacturing sector.

What is comforting is that the private sector appreciates that the agricultural sector is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy hence it is complementing government efforts to support farmers financially. A number of banks and other financial institutions continue to advance loans to farmers and this is as it should be.

This week, BancABC parent company ABC Holdings announced that it had sealed a $25 million deal with the Africa Agriculture and Trade Investment Fund (AATIF) to boost lending to the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe and the region. The money will benefit farmers in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania.

The BancABC chief operations officer Francis Dzanya said the money will be accessed by a wide range of participants in the agricultural sector. “By making loan capital available, the Fund aims to help stimulate agricultural output and add value across the entire chain of agricultural activities,” said Dzanya. The move by BancABC is a confirmation of the financial institution’s confidence in Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector.

This will in turn boost other investors’ confidence in the Zimbabwean economy which has of late shown great potential for growth. It will not be long before Zimbabwe regains its status of being the region’s food basket. The country’s land redistribution programme is almost complete and what is left is the land audit to ensure that all the land allocated to new farmers is fully utilised.

Those farmers who got the land for speculative purposes should be removed from the land and the land allocated to other landless people that are prepared to produce food for the nation. We want at this juncture to call on banks and other financial institutions to continue supporting new farmers so that they continue to produce not just for the country’s consumption but even surplus for export.

We envisage a situation whereby most of the food items on the shelves of our supermarkets and other retail outlets are locally produced and not imports as is the case now. The new farmers should continue to shame the land reform detractors and prophets of doom who have been predicting a collapse of the agricultural sector following the implementation of the land reform.