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Edgar Vhera Agriculture Specialist Writer
CBZ Agro-Yield is engaging agro-input suppliers over the possibility of including them too in their festive season promotion, which has seen input prices dropping, prompting contracted farmers to complain that prices quoted in their contractual agreements were way above those prevailing on the market.
In an exclusive interview with The Herald, Agri-Business yesterday, CBZ Agro-Yield managing director Mr Walter Chigodora said the prices extended to farmers were market driven and their interest rates were Government sanctioned.
“The prices that we quoted for the inputs are a true reflection of what the suppliers from where we get the inputs are charging us. We get the inputs on credit and are denominated in the United States dollar. We are expected to pay for the inputs later at the ruling interbank exchange rate.
“However, some suppliers have since slashed their prices to boost sales during this festive season, but the promotions have not been extended to us too. We are currently in talks with our suppliers to also consider including CBZ Agro-Yield among the benefactors, so that we can pass it on to our farmers and address the price disparities,” said Mr Chigodora.
Mr Chigodora revealed that they were in business to support farmers so that they go beyond merely breaking-even and make profits. He confirmed that they were not changing anything on the interest rates, but abiding by the directed Government policies.
“For the 2021/22 season the interest rate was 45 percent per annum, which has since been reviewed upwards to 120 percent (a special productive interest for agriculture), a figure that is still below the market rate of 200.
“The delayed disbursement of inputs to farmers has been a direct result of the farmers’ failure to repay their loans, which has forced some banks to go for overdrafts to finance the programme. Since the CBZ Agro-Yield programme is quite big, some farmers get disadvantaged but we are working flat out to correct this while inputs distribution is in progress,” added Mr Chigodora.
Moral among many farmers participating in the CBZ Agro-Yield programme had dipped to the lowest ebb, as they felt they were being overcharged for inputs and readily cited the example of Sakura herbicide that is currently priced at US$17 on the market but going for US$31,40 under the Agro-Yield programme.
Farmers are also contending that the interests being charged under the programme are very high and have also raised concern on delays in loan assessments, approval and input delivery. Farmers allege they only started receiving inputs two weeks ago and they have already lost their yield potential, yet CBZ Agro-Yield still want the loan to be repaid in full at the end of the season. They feel there is no sharing of risk.
Farmers are only eligible to be contracted after repaying at least 80 percent of loans from the previous season. The farmers’ other bone of contention is the stop order system, which they say allows funds to be garnished without even affording them a chance to settle critical utility bills, the likes of electricity.
They are also not happy with the idea of borrowing in local currency and later repaying using the US dollar at the interbank rate.
Online Reporter