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Obert Chifamba
Agri-Insight
LAST Friday, Agritex’s weekly updates highlighted that the area planted under traditional crops this year had increased, amid intimations that farmers may be pushing to diversify and boost food and nutrition security in the face of unrelenting climate change challenges and growing nutritional concerns.
The report showed that farmers had by that day planted 41 780 hectares of cowpeas, an increase of 17 percent from the 35 640ha planted during the same period last year, with the hectarage for pearl millet increasing by five percent from 138 781ha last year to 146 275ha this time around.
Groundnuts on the one hand recorded a jump from 196 123ha last year to 227 835ha this season.
However, it was a different story with sorghum after its hectarage took a dip by six percent, with farmers planting 243 254ha compared to 259 819ha last season, but the figures on the ground are pointing towards a growing appreciation of the value of traditional grains by farmers.
This change in perception may easily be attributed to an increase in producer prices of traditional grains.
Of course, the hand of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) in this turn of events is evident given that it has raised the producer price of traditional grains from $58 553 per tonne to $70 263, which is even higher than that of the traditionally more popular maize.
The long and short of the equation is that prices for traditional crops have now turned competitive and regularised, as Government is coming in with better offers.
In the not too-distant past, there was no synchronized marketing of traditional grains, with most farmers only producing the crops for various reasons other than the market.
Traditional grains have in the past been associated with very low market value as people would prefer to spend on other crops like maize, wheat and rice when it came to purchasing grains.
A 1996 study done by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) confirmed the trend explaining that as incomes rose, consumers tended to purchase wheat, rice, and, in some cases, maize, rather than traditional coarse grains.
This has resulted in farmers viewing small grains as having lower earnings than other crops.
Nciizah (2014) showed that one major disadvantage of traditional grains cited by farmers in Zvishavane, for instance, is the limited marketing opportunities.
In the study, farmers complained about the absence of a ready market for traditional grains, a situation that GMB’s move to buy the grains is squarely addressing.
Essentially, this may also turn out to be one of the reasons the hectarage of traditional grains is growing, while the growing noises on healthy eating can also not be overlooked.
It is encouraging to note that farmers situated in agro-ecological regions in which maize does not do very well because of the arid climate there seem to have realised that they can only be food secure if they listen to the voice and grow the drought tolerant traditional grains in place of the former.
This move will guarantee them both food security and an income if they grow the crops on bigger hectarage, especially considering that most of the traditional grain crops do not yield much and therefore need to be produced on big hectarages to make an impact.
GMB must also help and keep this positive energy alive by paying those who deliver the traditional grains to its depots in time to keep them motivated.
Traditional grains are reputed for their positive benefits health wise, hence the growing noises by those conscious of their dietary requirements to lessen the intake of maize products and switch to traditional grains.
Farmers need to ride on this growing demand, which is not only domestic, but regional and international, to produce enough for their requirements and for the market too.
It is worthy appreciating the fact that the Government is going all out to promote the production of traditional grains and has since included them in its Pfumvudza/Intwasa programme with the private sector also coming in to contract some farmers this season.
There are also some farmers that are self-financing their operations, which will surely add volumes to the eventual national yields.
The Government has also added icing to the process through embracing policies tolerant to traditional grains unlike what used to happen in the past when policies seemed to favour production of maize, which is considered both a staple and cash crop.
Such policies allowed farmers to get subsidised inputs through various programmes that were not available for traditional grain crops.
It is also critical for Government to facilitate and encourage the development of commodities market of traditional grains through partnering with the private sector.
This market will assist in price discovery of small grains and create forward and backward linkages between food processors, financiers, investors, agro-dealers, speculators and farmers to sustain the market of small grains.
Such initiatives will surely save some traditional crops from extinction after the smallholder farmers who used to be their major producers had turned to other high value crops grown under contract farming in their pursuit of the dollar.
Credit must go to the high demand for traditional crops on the market and the numerous awareness campaigns on the importance of healthy foods being carried out health enthusiasts.
Some restaurants now even have outlets serving traditional food that have turned into instant hits with customers.
In the traditional past, demand for traditional food was low as it was perceived to be for the poor.
Now, it is the affluent who are leading the revolution to prioritise traditional food and this has increased its demand on the market.
In some cases, non-governmental organisations are also promoting production of traditional crops by training farmers, especially those in low rainfall areas on the advantages of producing the crops.
They sometimes even assist with machinery such as threshers so farmers can easily process the crops.
This addresses one of the reasons some farmers had abandoned growing traditional crops — the laborious nature of the harvesting process.
Most of the crops will require thorough threshing, which is quite taxing in the event that a farmer has a small family from which to draw labour.
The toiling starts as early as at the weeding stage at which crops like rapoko have look – alikes such as Eleusine Indica.
Eleusine Indica looks exactly like rapoko making it very difficult for many people to distinguish the two.
The thinning process is also one hell of an activity for most people, which explains why most of the traditional grain crops had become unpopular with farmers.
However, farmers will be comforted by the prospects of the good rewards at the end of the marketing season.
In terms of food preparation, traditional grain crops also offer an advantage over maize.
The crops are even easier to grind in the absence of modern grinding mills.
According to Schmidt (1996), Shona women traditionally preferred millet and sorghum, which had smaller grains that were easier to pound and grind.
Online Reporter