Few take up wheat farming

In an interview, the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) executive director, Mr Paul Zakariya, said little was happening in terms of preparation for winter cropping country wide.

“This winter nothing is happening at all and the little activity that is happening is through farmers who are financing themselves and relying on irrigation schemes.
“These irrigation facilities do not rely on Zesa which is making them more reliable for wheat production,” he said.
He said besides the problems of financing, electricity challenges were hindering farmers, leading some farmers to quit winter farming.
“Erratic power supplies are compromising the winter wheat and electricity charges are very exorbitant as one needs $600 to $700 to irrigate one hectare of wheat when it takes two hectares of wheat to clear Zesa bills.

“The power is also not guaranteed and this affects crops resulting in poor yields. There are few takers during the season because of these issues.”
The optimum planting time for winter wheat is usually 15 May.
Mr Zakariya said the other thing that was distressing growers was the producer prices that were very low compared with the production costs.

“In terms of preparedness as a country, we have not done anything meaningful at all as farmers are really tied down with all these challenges. If you look at the past two years, you can see that the trend of winter farming has been going down and this year it looks like it is going to be even worse,” he said.
Mr Zakariya said potato farming was facing the same problems as banks were not financing farmers.

“Producers who are being financed by some corporates don’t get value for their money out of the crop hence they get frustrated and abandon winter farming,” he said.
The Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZFU) president Mr Donald Khumalo said most of their members were yet to access funding from financial institutions to support winter wheat and potato farming.

“There will be very few farmers to do winter farming because it is virtually difficult for us, due to the obvious problems such as financing and inputs.
“Only farmers who can finance their operations have started the preparations but they are very few compared with those who need help,” he said.

Mr Khumalo said there was nothing they could do as an organisation also, as they had a limited capital base to help the farmers.
“There is nothing much we can do at the moment as the challenges are insurmountable for us to tackle.
“Farmers need assistance from financial institutions for them to fully perform their agricultural activities,” he said.