adminFARMING is a business that is far more difficult than any other kind of business. What complicates it is the fact that one produces a commodity whose price they do not know or cannot influence. The pricing regime is influenced by global trends. Farming is an art or science that has a time or seasonal dimension, which makes planning a vital cog for its success. Planning beforehand helps farmers to best manage risk and work towards achieving set targets.
The ZFU 75th Annual Congress which ended yesterday (Thursday) in Mutare was an eye opener and one of the rare platforms where key stakeholders frankly admitted that the yesteryears gains of agriculture risk being eroded if, as a nation, we keep losing it on the planning side of it. If you do not plan, you are planning to fail, they say.
We can’t agree more with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Dr John Mangudya and Deputy Minister of Agriculture (Livestock), Cde Paddy Zhanda’s calls for Government to suspend the issuance of free inputs to farmers – big or small.
Zimbabweans need to move away from a culture of getting freebies and non-repayment of loans if its agriculture is to tick. Dr Mangudya and Cde Zhanda’s brevity must be applauded because the gesture by Government which was meant to achieve positive consequences has outlived its usefulness as it was piling pressure on fiscal resources and contributing to the unprecedented laziness and complacencies among farmers.
Free inputs have failed to guarantee household food and nutritional security and in the end our Government is being forced to import grain from neighbouring countries to give the same farmers to whom it would have dolled free inputs. Instead of perpetuating the dependency syndrome among the generality of farmers, our Government should only promote and capacitate serious ones who are alive to their responsibility of producing to their full potential for the purpose of feeding the nation.
Our farmers had become so accustomed to getting free inputs year in year out, but what is shocking is that the yield per hectare continue to drop since the inception of the freebies to an all time low of 0, 8 tonnes per hectare from about two tonnes per hectare in the 80s and 90s when there were no free handouts.
This culture of receiving without pouring sweat, blood and tears into the entire production process has resulted in our farmers being caught flat footed by seasonal rains.
This is September already and it is not surprising that some farmers have not acquired inputs for the forthcoming season which is already around the corner.
The danger is that the rainfall patterns have drifted due to climate change such that if the farmers miss the early rains, chances of making will be remote. The 2015/16 weather projections are that the country is likely to receive normal to below normal rains between October 2015 and March 2016. The October-March period is the main rainfall season and farmers should target early planting.
Government should take seriously the issue of capacitating farmers. Why are we not enrolling our farmers, not extension officers, at colleges to teach them how to produce and take farming as a serious business? For as long as our farmers lack the requisite agricultural and financial literacy, giving, even giving them millions of dollars of money and kilos of seed and fertilisers will never guarantee success.
Unions must advocate for the training of farmers to make them knowledgeable. Farmers need to be taught to be hands-on people. They must take a cue from former white farmers who were on the farm 24/7 and never delegated authority to managers.
Online Reporter