Wheat growers abandon crop

land yet planting should have started on May 1 or even slightly earlier.
The planting deadline is May 15 and farmers are only left with five days.
In Beatrice, a traditional wheat stronghold, growers said they were not going to produce the crop this year because of huge losses they incurred over the past years.

One of the farmers said power cuts made wheat production unviable.
“Last season, I lost approximately three quarters of my projected yields as the bulk of my wheat crop wilted at the soft dough stage because I could not irrigate it yet I had abundant water here,” he said.

He said he ended up turning to the use of generators to irrigate the little of his crop that survived, which made wheat farming very unprofitable.

The Grain Marketing Board’s delays in paying farmers, he further explained, had complicated matters.
The farmer added that if ever he were to change his mind, he would not crop more than 10 hectares.
Last year he had 70 hectares of the cereal.

He also cited the prohibitive price of inputs and delays in the provision of inputs under Government initiated programmes as some of the factors that had forced many of the farmers in his area to either abandon or drastically slash the hectarage.
Up to now farmers cannot access the funds.
Farmers who have approached banks were turned away as the banks said they had not received anything from Government.

Government, some sources say, was relying on carry over inputs from last season and these are not available at the GMB depots, as some farmers still have unredeemed vouchers from last year.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Mr Donald Khumalo also expressed concern over the manner in which inputs under Government’s US$20 million  facility were being handled.

“Up to now farmers have not been able to access vouchers from CBZ with which to access the inputs from the GMB, which has left many farmers unable to start their preparations,” he said.
Mr Khumalo said there was still a lot of uncertainty on the availability of inputs under the Government’s scheme now that the season had already started.

Government last month announced a US$20 million input scheme for this year’s winter wheat cropping season.
The amount is enough to cover more than 26 000 hectares that are expected to produce at least 75 000 tonnes, up from the 41 000 tonnes produced from 14 100 hectares planted last season.

The scheme, made up of US$15 million worth of inputs carried over from the past summer season and a fresh US$5 million injection, was announced by Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made and his Finance counterpart Tendai Biti at a joint Press conference.
“We are proposing that we target 26 280 hectares of winter wheat and the requirement is US$20 million and this targeted hectarage should give us a production of 75 000 metric tonnes,” Minister Made said.

Government, he said, was targeting farmers in the natural wheat growing regions that had enough irrigation facilities.
Minister Made said the inputs would be distributed through the GMB.
He said the provision of inputs at cost price was to prevent unscrupulous people from accessing subsidised inputs and then resell at exorbitant price.

The situation on the ground, however, seems to suggest that Government’s target hectarage may not be achieved further denting hopes of reviving the wheat industry and cutting on the volumes of wheat to be imported.
Zimbabwe needs at least 400 000 tonnes of the cereal every year for bread making. This will leave the country relying heavily on imports to bridge the gap.