LETTICIA MAGOMBO
Farmers say the new maize price of ZWL$100 000 per tonne announced by the government last week is inadequate to sustain the growing of the staple.
The Grain Marketing Board has been paying farmers ZW$75 000 a tonne plus US$90 a tonne.
But, the price was reviewed upwards to ZWL$100 000 a tonne. The United States dollar component remained at US$90 a tonne.
Stewart Mubonderi, the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union chairman, told Business Times that the maize price was insufficient to ensure the self-sustainability of farmers.
“Agricultural self-sustainability remains a pipeline dream because if you look at the current prices of inputs and the price currently on offer right now, it cannot even cover a quarter of the needs of the farmer for the next cropping season,” Mubonderi said, adding that farmers will continue to rely on command agriculture because they cannot leave the farm”.
He said the solution is to give the farmer a viable price.
“Instead of the government pumping out US$300/MT or US$350/MT on imports, the government can take that money and give it to the farmer so that they become self-sustainable,” Mubonderi said.
“Currently a bag of fertiliser is going for around US$70 that means that a farmer would need around US$140 a tonne to meet their needs but ZW$100 000 at the current rate will only be able to purchase one bag of fertiliser.
He said legislation, such as Statutory Instruments, that was put in place to fight side marketing will never help.
“If you go around right now you see that maize is still being bought in the rural areas by private buyers because farmers see that for them it’s more lucrative,” Mubonderi said.
The president of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union, Shadreck Makombe, said the association wanted a conducive environment as farming is a business.
“The problem as it stands right now is that prices of inputs have gone up and the cost of borrowing is exorbitant,” Makombe said.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe hiked interest rates to 200% from 80% to curb speculative borrowing.
