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Mehluli Sibanda
BEING based outside Zimbabwe has not hindered South Africa-domiciled Mr Kumbulani Moyo from making full use of land allocated to him by the Government through the land reform programme in Bubi District of Matabeleland North Province.
Mr Moyo was allocated the piece of land in 2003, one for his homestead and the other for communal farming.
Over the years, the 47-year-old Moyo has improved the land with state-of-the-art fencing, drilled boreholes and established irrigation systems in order to carry out farming. Recently, he ventured into dairy farming as he sought to expand his venture in preparation for retirement.
“We were allocated the piece of land in 2003, through the land reform, then we were one of the fortunate people who got land and from there on we started to develop it over a number of years. Currently we are sitting on around 5,5 hectares that we are farming on.
“We are growing different crops that range from maize, cabbages, butternuts and okra,’’ said Mr Moyo.
For years, Mr Moyo relied on rain for his farming venture until he decided to drill boreholes in 2020 in order to make use of the land throughout the year.
At the moment, he has three solar powered boreholes. The farmer recently revamped his irrigation system to a commercial structure that pumps water at a high pressure.
“We started to intensify some 10 years ago, where we had to re-equip it (the land) to be able to farm even during off season where we’ve even installed irrigation systems, a complete irrigation which was completed two years back,” he said.
Mr Moyo is not only focusing on cash crops, with fruit trees also having been planted, which are expected to start bearing fruits soon. He also has ventured into sugar cane which should be harvested this year.
“Now we’re focusing on ploughing and planting, over and above we are diversifying to other types of farming which includes the fruits section, we have also done some trials on the sugar cane and dairy, which we started a year back.”
In terms of direct investment into the venture, Mr Moyo, a trade unionist in South Africa who also runs a construction company indicated that he has poured in excess of a million in South African rand.
“It’s quite a large amount of investment, which was direct, not borrowed money, it’s from the savings which we have used, we can quantify to millions of rand,’’ he indicated.
Mr Moyo is not looking for a quick return on investment and has given himself at least five years to reap something from his venture.
“If you’re doing farming, the basic that you firstly look at is do you have passion because the return of investment is not a short term thing, it’s a long term thing, which we are expecting maybe after five years from now, we might be starting to recover in terms of the investments that we’ve put in.
“What we can say is that some of the crops that we’re growing, especially the maize and also on the dairy side, it seems like we are constantly getting some of the investment money that we put in but we are still a long way from recovering the investment that has been put in,’’ he said.
At the moment the farm has 11 employees while they also engage part-time workers occasionally whenever there is a need.
Mr Moyo is also doing a lot of work in the community, providing water, sponsoring a football tournament and tilling the land. It is because of that work that the Inyathi community has been supportive of his farming venture.
Despite the ups and downs, Mr Moyo has no regrets about venturing into commercial farming since he believes that one day he will achieve his goals.
“At my age, I’ve passed through a lot so I don’t regret, I still believe that one day we will achieve what we want to achieve. When I enter this space, I understand that there will be a lot of things, but we know that when we enter into this space, there will be no regrets, it’s part of our duty which we must do.
“What makes me comfortable is the progress that we see, although we are not at that level but some of the things that we visualised before we started, they are coming to shape, the issue of the water system, we are quite happy, currently it’s working well, once we manage to connect our electricity, I think we will be 100 percent happy because we will be using now more of the mechanised side of things instead of being manual in terms of connectivity, water and pressure,” he said.
Mr Moyo called upon other Zimbabweans based in the diaspora to play their part in supporting Vision 2030, which seeks to fundamentally transform Zimbabwe into an upper middle income economy in seven years’ time by investing in the country.
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Online Reporter