Farmers reject Govt incentive

RYAN CHIGOCHE / LETTICIA MAGOMBO


Local maize farmers are set to keep hold of their grain as they stand firm on their initial demand of being paid in United States dollar despite the government rolling out a US$90 incentive for early grain deliveries.

On Tuesday the Cabinet agreed that farmers who deliver maize to the Grain Marketing Board before the end of July will get an incentive of US$90 per every tonne delivered on top of the ZWL$75 000 per tonne producer price for all four summer grains.

Speaking to Business Times the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union chairman Stewart Mubonderi, said the authorities must do more considering the high cost of production.

Mubonderi said farmers expect a producer price of over US$300 per tonne.

“While this is a welcome development, we still feel that the government has to do more. The reason being that when we were growing the crops almost every input was in US$ up until harvesting,” Mubonderi told Business Times.

“I would like to believe that between US$300/MT and US$400/MT would be the best price. If they say US$300 then the other one can be in ZWL$ and it will be okay with our farmers, because that would be 80%.”

He said the government was spending about US$350 on maize imports and the local farmer is getting US$150 .

“Why not give US$300 to the farmer or US$280 to the farmer? Then the farmer is motivated to grow, we save foreign currency that way, and all the crop is brought into the country and is handed over to the GMB,” Mubonderi said.

He added that the bigger farmers will hold on to their grain as they wait for a lasting solution while small-scale farmers are expected to deliver their maize.

Shadreck Makombe, president of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union, also expressed a desire for a further review of the price saying:“The US$90 incentive is a step in the right direction. It shows that the government is sensitive to our lobbying and advocacy, that is to say our engagement, but we continue to lobby for more because we would want the 30% also to be increased to 50% and eventually 100%.

“Because, we are also helping with the foreign currency saving in that, the money which was ordinarily meant to be used to import is not going to those imports but, will now go towards other issues as we would have produced locally.”

The government gazetted Statutory Instrument 145 of 2018 which compels farmers to sell their grain to the GMB which has the sole rights, at a fixed price.

With the GMB having a track record of late payments, farmers fear the producer price of ZWL$75 000 will soon be eroded by the time they receive the payments.

As the local currency continues being eroded by inflation there is fear of side marketing as the government’s  latest offer falls way below the US$300 which farmers are demanding.

The ZWL$75 000 is equivalent to US$166 using the parallel market exchange rate which the farmers use to buy their inputs.

Speaking to Business Times, a Goromonzi based farmer, Joshua Nyamukacha, said authorities should revert to the US$390 per metric tonne as before, factoring in the high input costs.

“…fertiliser prices keep going up so the price being offered might still be insufficient, because if I consider the amount of money I would need to farm as well as daily expenses I will be at a disadvantage,” Nyamukacha said.

Another farmer Eva Kasaira said: “The amount being offered is still very little because if you look at the farming inputs up to the time of harvesting that money is insufficient to cover them. So we are appealing to the government to increase the producer price.”

“We are not ready to give up our produce as farmers to the GMB, as yet, because as it is we haven’t harvested as much due to the difficult farming season but we will try and deliver what we can.”

Zimbabwe is projecting a 43% drop in maize output to 1 557 914 metric tonnes in the 2021/22 season from the 2 717 171 metric tonnes which were produced in the 2020/2021 season due to late rainfall and a prolonged dry spell.

 

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