LETTICIA MAGOMBO
Constant power cuts have hit hard on wheat farmers who struggled to complete irrigation cycles during the winter cropping season, Business Times can report.
Cabinet assured the farmers that 100 megawatts will be ring-fenced, meaning the farmers will be exempted from rolling loadshedding for them to achieve the 383 000 tonnes target set by the government.
However, farmers have not received uninterrupted power supplies.
Speaking at the annual wheat pre-harvesting conference held in the capital last week, the Commercial Farmers Union chief economist, Antonette Chingwe, said severe power cuts have been a major problem this cropping season.
“…Unreliable power supply has been a big blow. It has been a recurrent type of challenge, every year we face the same challenge and this year when the season began it was a bit better but mid-season we experienced quite significant power cuts which disrupted our irrigation calendars. Most of the crops suffered,” Chingwe said.
The Zimbabwe Farmers Union’s business development manager, Dennis Chise said the power cuts have affected wheat irrigation as ZESA has not been prioritising farmers.
“We have been experiencing severe power cuts. So, we hope ZESA can be lenient to us and be fair to us and exclude wheat farmers so that we can achieve our vision,” Chise said
He added: “It is also related to vandalism. It’s sad that the culprits are known. They are arrested but two days later they are back in the streets. So, our wish is that the authorities, especially the courts and the police, do their jobs to make sure that these culprits won’t be with us again.”
It is also understood that some wheat farmers were cut off the grid due to unpaid debts to the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), a unit of ZESA Holdings.
“Most farmers will settle their debts through the stock order facility. When they sell their wheat that’s when they are able to pay for their bills,” Chingwe said.
He said cutting them off mid-season means that production might also be affected and they might not even be able to pay those bills at all.
It was a disturbance that was later resolved, Chingwe said.
