Govt overlooks half of Zim farmers
LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
Nearly half of the country’s farmers will not access free agricultural inputs in the forthcoming summer cropping season like in previous years, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Anxious Masuka has warned.
Government has over the years provided farming inputs such as seed and fertilizers, among other inputs under the Climate proofed Presidential Inputs Scheme, popularly known as Pfumvudza/Intwasa
But, this summer cropping season, almost 48% of the country’s farmers will not receive government support.
They are now expected to self-fund their input procurement.
The affected farmers are expected to utilise 1.67m hectares out of a total of 3.45m hectares.
“According to the 2022/2023 summer cropping season game plan, the self-financed model (will) constitutes 48%. A total hectarage of 1.67m hectares out of the total of 3.45m hectares with maize dominating the financing model at 1.31m hectares,” Masuka said at a recent Zimbabwe Farmers Union congress held in the capital.
“Private financing dominates in soyabeans financing where various contractors and oil expressers want to cut on expensive edible imports.”
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Shadreck Makombe told Business Times that there was a need for a conducive environment for self-financed farmers to thrive.
He said inputs should be affordable.
“Now that we have seen the statistics for the 2022/2023 summer cropping season game plan and we have seen that self-financed farmers are the majority of our farmers, there is a huge need to make inputs affordable to attain desired output,” Makombe said.
“Self-financed farmers have close to half of the total hectarage hence expensive fertilizers and seeds will not help the country to produce 3m tonnes of maize and 143 000 tonnes of soyabeans among other set targets.”
Makombe said tractors for other programmes should be charged reasonable amounts to enable self-financed farmers to till their land or plant.
The development comes as the cabinet approved the 2022/23 Summer Cropping and Livestock Plan which was anchored on the creed and theme of attaining food security at all costs.
Despite the government’s desire to achieve food self-sufficiency, there are impediments that stand between food security and hunger.
“As we want to achieve food security, we still have the realities that stand on our way which include Covid -19 effects and geo-political developments in Eastern Europe [3Fs-Food, Feed, Fuel challenges],” Masuka said.
The government is targeting a total output of 2.911 tonnes of maize, 322 055 tonnes of sorghum, 150 792 tonnes of pearl millet , 143 254 tonnes of soyabeans and 347 134 tonnes of groundnuts.
The estimated total maize output of close to 3m is way above the national requirement of 2.26m tonnes and there will be a surplus of around 700 000 tonnes which will form the national strategic grain reserve.
The maize production for 2021/2022 season stood at 1 557 914tonnes which is a 43% decrease from the 2 717 171tonnes produced in the 2020/2021 season.The total cereal production is 1 752 014Mt against a national cereal requirement of 2 267 599Mt (1 817 599Mt for human consumption and 350 000Mt for livestock).
However, Zimbabwe has sufficient grain stocks in its strategic grain reserve, which will help ensure food security up to the next harvest, according to new government report.
