Farmers decry high inputs prices

Oliver Kazunga

Farmers have bemoaned steep input costs and interest rates on bank loans saying this could work against their aspirations for better prospects in the 2024/25 agriculture season.

Weather experts have predicted that this cropping season, which has already begun with some parts of the country receiving some rains in the past few weeks, would have normal to above-normal rains.

Although the current weather forecast has come as a relief to the farming community after a bad 2023/24 summer cropping season that plunged Zimbabwe and other southern African countries into the El Nino-induced drought this year, farmers say their spirits are dampened by the high cost of key inputs such as fertiliser and seed.

Their predicament, the farmers say, has also been exacerbated by the cost of borrowing from the banking sector where interest rates were above 30 percent.

The Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) executive director, Paul Zakariya said: “In terms of the inputs’ availability of both seed and fertiliser, we are covered. Availability is not an issue but prices have shot up, you can imagine a 25 kilogramme bag of seed is now going for US$65 from around US$40 that on its own is very limiting.

“Our farmers do not have that kind of money. We are also coming out of a very bad season, not many farmers managed to secure a good harvest — that also means farmers do not have liquidity (cashflow) required for them to buy as much of the inputs that have already risen in prices.”

Zakariya said despite the above challenge, the banks are not able to negotiate with farmers to reschedule the payment of loans secured in the last season and in scenarios where a farmer is able to secure a loan, the interest rates are prohibitive.

“In most instances, financial institutions are not prepared to negotiate with farmers to reschedule or to work out on rolling over their loans from last season.

“So, the banks are pushing farmers to pay and the farmers do not have the money — and if the farmers afford to pay pack what they owe definitely their resources will be depleted in as far as them being able to get this season’s requirements — this is a terrible situation and also not to mention the fact that if a farmer has to borrow, the interest rates have gone up and everything is working against the farmer,” he said.

“Possibly, it’s only those that are going to rely on schemes and contract farming that will go on the ground possibly in time without having to adjust their hectarage.

“So, for those self-financing farmers, obviously, the hectarage is going to be smaller and that’s the situation on the ground at the moment.”

As part of efforts by the Government to support the agriculture sector, some farmers across the country, particularly small-holder farmers, receive seed and fertiliser under the Presidential Inputs Scheme.

However, in the past it has been observed that some of the beneficiaries of the Presidential Inputs Scheme, among other support initiatives, have abused the facilities by deliberately failing to plant or selling the inputs for one reason or the other.

The Government has announced that beneficiaries of agriculture inputs would be made to account for their actions as authorities have tightened the screws to ensure all the resources are put to good use to boost food security in the country.

In a separate interview, the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Dr Shadreck Makombe echoed similar sentiments as Zakariya saying they were in a catch-22 situation as prices for inputs and interest rates on bank loans have risen sharply.

“We are in a catch-22 situation. It’s like we have been caught in between a rock and a hard surface because here we are trying to take farming as a business and move the country forward economically, but our efforts are being derailed by the price of inputs and the interest rates on bank loans.

“Under this situation, we are calling upon the responsible authorities to intervene because as it is, output will this year be affected enormously by what is prevailing on the ground.

“This is despite the normal to above-normal rainfall season that has been predicted by weather experts,” he said.