adminSamuel Kadungure Senior Farming Reporter
THE directive to process payments for 2016 tobacco directly into bank accounts has drawn mixed reactions among small-scale farmers who are grappling to open bank accounts for the first time.
The resource-poor farmers also argued that the authority should have put in place relevant technologies allowing them to transact within their respective communities before making the directive compulsory.
Tobacco selling season opened yesterday for auction sales and today (Thursday) for contract sales floors with most small-scale farmers queuing to open bank accounts.
Calls for the implementation of the directive in phases have fallen on deaf ears as the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in a joint press statement made it mandatory for all growers to be banked.
“All proceeds from the sale of tobacco will be paid through bank accounts. In this regard farmers are required to open accounts with banks of their choice to facilitate payments,” reads part of the joint statement.
“Banks have been engaged and are going to offer bank accounts to tobacco growers at favourable conditions which include waiving of charges for maintaining bank accounts. As part of Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, banks will only require tobacco farmers to furnish them with their national identity and tobacco grower’s number in order to open a bank account. Farmers are advised to take this opportunity before the opening of the auction floors to immediately open bank accounts. As for those farmers who would have failed to open bank accounts before the start of the selling season, they will do so at the auction floors”.
Rural farmers that spoke to The Manica Post pleaded for time to adjust and appreciate the benefits of the new approach to be implemented as part of the RBZ financial inclusion.
Small-scale farmers reacted with surprise that such a radical change would add to their woes.
Tobacco Association of Zimbabwe president, Mr David Mutasa, leaped to the defence of small-scale farmers, saying there was need for RBZ, TIMB and farmer organisations to first educate and build capacity of rural farmers to appreciate the changes.
“To most commercial farmers that has been the norm, payment was through the bank, but that did not apply to small-scale farmers and this will be the first time for some of them to open a bank account.
“The position has not been made official, yet the selling season is on March 30 and depending on when they will make it official, those farmers will need time to comply.
“The new measure should be implemented in phases. They cannot impose it now because the process to open a bank account in Zimbabwe is hectic. They should introduce it in phases to avoid a situation where we end up having some farmers scouting for relatives and friends’ bank accounts to transact. We do not encourage that,” said Mr Mutasa.
Tobacco grower, Mr Shupikai Mvurumutiya of Village R, in Mutare District demanded to know what measures had been put in place to ensure that farmers transact within their vicinity.
“Can I transact from my home in Mapembe or I have to wake up at 4am to board a bus to Mutare. Why are they rushing to make such changes without putting up mechanisms to ensure that rural farmers access their money without additional travelling costs,” said Mr Mvurumutiya.
Another farmer, Mr Difference Muchemwa of Chitenderano, said there was need for Government to ensure that ICT services are readily accessible in all rural communities before such measure were made compulsory.
He said some areas had poor mobile network coverage that would make it difficult for them to transact near their homes.
“They need to engage mobile network operators to improve network coverage for the convenience of rural farmers. There is also need for introduction of point of sale in rural areas so that we can transact and access small amounts of cash when need arise,” said Mr Muchemwa.
Payment of tobacco proceeds through bank accounts enables farmers to access cash through bank Automated Teller Machine (ATM), creation of track record for farmers which will assist in accessing loans, convenience of transacting through other payment platforms such as mobile banking and point of sale (POS); guarantee security of the hard earned income, as over the years farmers have fallen prey to thieves and unscrupulous dealers and traders and allow farmers to plan before spending.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union director, Mr Paul Zakaria, said farmers would appreciate benefits of financial inclusion and financial literacy with time.
He said farmers had a track record to borrow from banks.
“The current liquidity crunch also makes it impossible for farmers to access hard cash, so this kind of arrangement makes it easy to have that value transferred into their accounts, and spending can be done using the bank card,” said Mr Zakaria.
Rural development expert, Professor Joseph Kamuzhanje, added that there was need for rural farmers to adopt e-extension as one of the methods that could be used to promote pluralistic extension approaches.
These approaches involve the close collaboration between Government, NGOs, private sector and the farmers themselves as they learn from each other.
“With the high numbers of people in the rural areas owning mobile phones and with mobile connectivity not a major issue, there are great opportunities for extension messages to be accessed by the farmers. This is already happening but the major challenge has been ensuring that this is a two way communication,” said Prof Kamuzhanje.
Prof Kamuzhanje added that making the platform a two way channel enables farmers to query the information that they receive but more importantly, to post supplementary questions which can be responded to by the experts.
“For this to happen, the messages should be targeted at specific value chains which calls for farmers to be organised into commodity groups. This ensures that the messages that they receive are relevant to the work that they are doing,” said Prof Kamuzhanje.
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