adminKudzanai Gerede
RURAL women farmers specialising in small grains have called on Government to come up with a robust post-harvest market system for small grain farmers to sell their produce as they currently face viability challenges owing to stigmatisation from commercial buyers.
They argued that they have the capacity to produce more small grains to feed the country and also supply external markets like those in Asia, but bemoaned lack of a sound marketing strategy by Government to secure a ready market for them.
This came out at the Traditional and Organic Food and Seed Festival stakeholders meeting with Rural Women Farmers Association ( RWFA)in Harare last Friday where they complained of finding it hard to sell small grains and proposed for the setting up of a small grains marketing board.
They called for a policy that seeks to improve the marketing and distribution of small grains especially considering the country’s maize deficit from the previous harvest that has put the country at risk of hunger.
Climate change leading to erratic rainfall patterns has had adverse effects on the country’ stable crop , maize, which has seen government calling for farmers especially those in drought prone areas to plant small grains which are drought resistant to ensure food security.
“We have serious challenges in selling our small grains because commercial buyers shun us because they assume we can’t meet their required tonnage but we can easily combine our produce to meet any required tonnage. We call for the Government to set up a board such as GMB that will only buy our small grains,” a representative of the RWFA issued a statement from the meeting resolutions.
“Tobacco, cotton and maize farmers have a ready market which is well marketed, but we are not being taken seriously. We need to find was of demystifying whatever misconceptions they have about small grain farmers who produce crops like rapoko, millet and sorghum. We will be much better if we have our own board,” said the statement.
They called for the scrapping of grain permits which had a negative bearing on communal farmers who could not afford to secure one.
Most of the farmers are producing pearl millet, macia seed, sorghum, rapoko and wheat, but complain of high production costs and little income.
They took a swipe at seed companies and distributors stating that they were not serving indigenous interests as they were not promoting the indigenous seeds in their genetic form which was depriving communities of nutritious value contained in these indigenous small seeds.
Mr Nelson Ziwacha, a programme officer for Chimanimani-based agricultural training centre, Towards Sustainable Use of Resources Organisation (TSURO), said the situation was forcing most small grain communal farmers to abandon the trade as they were having problems with selling their produce and in most cases were left with the sole option of selling their produce to local buyers.
“Most of these farmers are now forced to sell their produce at village level because they cannot afford to pay for the permit to sell their grains elsewhere. We (TSURO) are trying our best to help with the little we have to buy from small farmers in Chimanimani which we in turn use for our training programmes,” he said.
He said there was a challenge which the farmers had to address before they cry foul, which was the supply of sub standard grains sometimes.
“Some farmers produce varied quality of small grains which in most cases proves difficult to sell because some of the seeds they plant are recycled seeds which have long lost their grandeur therefore resulting in poor final products,” he warned.
Poor small grain marketing and distribution has been depriving the not only the small communities of revenue but also as a buffer for farming communities depending on failed maize harvests.
Early this year, Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Dr Joseph Made, assured small grain farmers that they were in the process of coming up with a post harvest marketing strategy.
Online Reporter