Govt resolves to pay farmers

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made, yesterday said some of the farmers were owed money for grain delivered during the Zimbabwe dollar era.
Minister Made said Government was in the process of rationalising the prices of maize that was delivered to the GMB during the Zimbabwe dollar era. However, Parliament said the farmers were supposed to be paid at the prevailing rate because the amounts of grain delivered were known.
Minister Made said Government had already engaged millers to buy the grain at agreed prices.
He said Treasury had agreed to avail money to offset some of the outstanding payments.
“Cabinet has now approved that under strategic grain reserves, we dispose off certain amount to our millers. We have already agreed on prices. The decision is to pay the farmers who have already delivered to GMB.”
The country needs over 500 000 tonnes of grain for strategic reserves.
Minister Made said Finance Minister Tendai Biti on Tuesday agreed to release the money.
“One hopes that with the agreement reached yesterday (Tuesday), the money will be sent to GMB for payment. But you know, when you have that situation sometimes you are reluctant to announce that because of the failure before to deliver on those promises from a financing point of view. “We are cautious now as agriculture to say until the money has been physically transferred otherwise I will give false hope but I do hope that with what we concluded with the Minister of Finance yesterday, something must happen,” he said.
Minister Made said this while giving oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Water, Lands and Resettlement yesterday.
Chikomba Central legislator, Mr Moses Jiri (MDC-T) chairs the committee.
Minister Made said farmers were likely to be affected by lack of top dressing fertilizer.
He said Sable Chemical was not producing the fertiliser because it had been switched off by Zesa because it owes the power utility money.
Minister Made said commercial farmers had been excluded from benefiting from Government’ subsidised top dressing fertiliser because of the shortages. He said local fertiliser companies had been given the green light to import top dressing fertiliser but only managed to import 23 percent of the required quantities.
They claimed they did not have money.
Minister Made said instead of 72 700 tonnes of top dressing required, fertiliser companies have only delivered 15 700 tonnes.
He said the companies had only managed to import 3 800 tonnes of urea.
The committee questioned Government’s wisdom to subsidise inputs for the private sector.
Goromonzi North MP, Cde Paddy Zhanda, said there was no need for Government to subsidise commercial farmers when they could venture into contract farming with the private sector.
Government, he said, should only focus on subsidising communal farmers who delivered their produce to the GMB. “Isn’t it reasonable and fair given the background that we deal precisely with securitisation of commercial farms so that they can borrow loans from banks? The background to this is that only those who are in influential positions get inputs. We are unhappy with the current subsidy system where those who have are subsidised ahead of those who don’t have,” Cde Zhanda said.
The committee also requested to see the names of all beneficiaries of the farm mechanisation programme.
The legislators said they were not opposed to the programme but did not want to see the same people who got A2 farmers also benefiting from inputs and farming implements at the expense of the poor.
The committee also wanted to know when farmers who got farm implements under the programme will pay for what they received.