admin
Farmers have hailed Zesa for sticking to its part of the agreement to supply them with uninterrupted power during an agreed four days per week.
The clusters were arrived at in liason with farmer organisations and Agritex officials.
Before the agreement, constant power cuts were disrupting irrigation and causing machinery breakdowns.
Mr Wonder Chabikwa, president of the Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe, said reliable provision of electricity would improve yields.
“As farmer organisations, we sat down with Zesa and agreed that there will be no electricity cuts for four days of the week. I am happy to say that the company has so far stuck to their part of the bargain.”
He said that if the trend continues up until harvest time, yields will greatly improve.
“We might be talking about the decrease in hectarage. What farmers must know is that yields are more important than the hectarage,” Mr Chabikwa said.
Mr Berean Mukwende, the Zimbabwe Farmers Union vice-president, echoed these sentiments: “We have had frosty relations with Zesa in the past. However, when it comes to maintaining its part of the bargain, farmers should give the power utility a pat on the back. I pray that this trend be maintained throughout the winter cropping season.”
Mr Fullard Gwasira, Zesa Holdings spokesperson, attributed a number of factors to the reliable supply of electricity to farmers.
“This initiative was put in place to support the national objective of Zim-Asset in food provision. (The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company, a unit of Zesa) is providing 50MW to the winter crop farmers in the interests of farming.
“System reliability on the small thermal plants of Harare, Munyati and Bulawayo contributes to better output and thereby better quality of service which our customers so deserve,” Mr Gwasira said.
He said introduction of pre-paid metering also assisted in providing a direct relationship between consumption and payment for electricity, resulting in customers paying more attention to energy conservation.
Mr Mukwende, however, bemoaned Zesa’s failure to urgently attend to faults.
“Like I said before, farmers are happy with Zesa. The only problem that farmers are facing is the time that the company takes to respond to reported faults. Besides the issue to do with the faults, everything else is fine,” Mr Mukwende said.
In response, Mr Gwasira said Zesa had put in place a stringent regime of maintaining plant and grid networks.
“We have purchased in excess of 250 vehicles to support the recovery of faults. We also bought conductor cables and joining kits for faster turnaround,” Mr Gwasira said.
This is not the first time that Zesa has won farmers’ hearts.
In 2013, farmers hailed the public utility after it introduced a debt relief of US$80 million to resettled and rural farmers as a way of contributing to the recovery and success of agrarian reforms. The debt relief resulted in increased output.
“We applaud the relationship we had with farmers which is in a very big way contributed to the results which we are witnessing,” concluded Mr Gwasira.
Online Reporter