2022, a year of befuddled emotions for agriculture

Agriculture is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future as Government is doing a lot to maintain the status despite some hiccups in implementation.

Although agriculture contributes only 11-14 percent of GDP, the sector according to the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency (ZimStat), provides employment for some 60 percent of the population, and about 50 percent of all raw materials for the industry. About 45 percent of the country’s exports are of agricultural origin, making the sector very strategic.

However, recent droughts have caused the agricultural sector to experience crop failure and livestock losses, this greatly undermining the national herd now standing at 4,9 million, a figure well below the pre-drought situation.

The Good of 2022

Wheat production has been a topical issue with the country targeting its best ever harvesting season since records began to be kept. It has been the beacon of the 2022 agriculture conversation in all parts of the country.

Farmers have so far harvested 326 687 tonnes of winter wheat from a target of 380 000 metric tonnes (MT), a government report shows. However, the report also revealed that the harvesting season was affected by shortages of combine harvesters and rains.

Cumulative area harvested across the provinces stands at 72 389 hectares (ha), which is 89 percent of the planted area with cumulative expected production of 326 687 MT. The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) stocks will provide 7,6 months’ cover at a consumption rate of 21 000 MT per month, while the total country stock will last 9,2 months.

This is the most wheat that Zimbabwe has ever grown since the crop was introduced to the country in 1962. It beats the previous record of 325 000 tonnes in 1990. Zimbabwe plans to further grow output to 420 000 tonnes next season. Annual consumption is 360 000 tonnes per year.

Another good piece of news which came from the industry during the year was that Zimbabwe’s raw milk production in the first 10 months to October increased 16 percent to 74,99 million liters from 64,80 million liters recorded in the same period last year.

“Maintaining this growth momentum in the remaining quarter will result in the 2022 national milk production being in excess of 90 million liters thanks to efforts by all dairy value chain stakeholders,” the Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers (ZADF) said in a tweet.

China imported agricultural products worth US$332 million from Zimbabwe in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 111,6 percent year on year. The jump in imports shows China’s potential as a big market for Zimbabwe’s agricultural products, the Chinese embassy said in July 2022.

In the same vein, Zimbabwe’s citrus exports to the European Union (EU) market grew 30 percent between September and March, according to EU trade data.

The EU imported 1,067 million tonnes of citrus between September 2021 and March 2022, just 1,1 percent more than in the same period of the 2020/21 season. Of these imports, Zimbabwe’s citrus growers exported 26 380 tonnes to Europe, according to the report, the Enhanced Monitoring of Citrus Fruit Imports by the EU.

As for horticulture, the good news did not end there, as during the second half of the year, Treasury launched the US$30 million Horticulture Export Revolving Fund (HERF).

The US$30 million HERF will go a long way toward enabling our farmers to begin horticulture projects as well as acquire value-addition facilities that will enable dehydrating, freezing, canning, bottling, extracting, juicing, and concentrating their produce. This is in line with the 2022 National Budget Statement on the SDR allocation.

The facility was made available through the regular banking channels, where qualified export horticulture applicants and intended beneficiaries submit their requests to the participating banks with the necessary details.

In support of the irrigation intervention the Treasury disbursed $3,5 billion between January to September 2022 targeting various schemes.

In his infrastructure report, Minister of Finance and Economic Development Mthuli Ncube said, “Development of 21 Irrigation projects through the Turnkey Phase 1 programme wherein to date 16 projects covering 1 005ha out of the target of 1 592 ha have been completed and construction works are ongoing on five projects covering 432ha.”

The minister said during the same period, Turnkey Phase 2, which is targeting 5 415ha of land on 32 projects saw three projects covering 350ha being completed whilst works are in progress on four projects covering 552ha.

Pedstock Center Pivot Facility where a total of 61 pivots have been delivered out of a target of 80, has seen a total of 52 pivots installed with 47 of them now irrigating a combined area of 2 020ha out of the targeted 2 900ha.

The Bad of 2022

Very few bad issues have been reported in the year, and most of them were centered on payments of deliveries across crops.

A standoff is on between farmers and the GMB over delays to pay for winter wheat deliveries. This has dented hopes of a successful summer cropping season according to farmers.

With the summer cropping season now in full swing, Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) director Paul Zakariya, said the delays by GMB to pay farmers were derailing prospects of a good harvest.

“It is the expectation of every farmer to be paid fair value for their produce but more importantly, to be paid in time. Farming is all about timing,” Zakariya said this week.

“As such, delays in making payments will affect production plans going forward. Wheat farmers are struggling to keep farming operations afoot as a result of these late payments.”

Zimbabwe’s tobacco industry in March was rocked by a scandal involving contractors collecting insurance premiums from unsuspecting farmers contracted under them, prejudicing the growers.

Multiple players told Business Weekly at the time that the contractors, who were not authorised to transact insurance business, were not remitting the premiums, which ranged from US$70.00 to US$120.00 per every hectare registered, to insurance companies.

Instead, the contractors have been diverting the premiums collected to fund their operations.

During the year, Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) banned Voedsel Tobacco International from contracting farmers this year after the contractor was said to have failed to pay farmers for two years.

“Voedsel won’t be participating this year because they owe huge amounts of money to tobacco growers,” an unnamed official told Business Weekly in November.

Verdict

In all fairness, the year 2022 has been a good one for agriculture as a whole, but government should look to sort out some of the inefficiencies coming from its side. We are currently experiencing a boom in agriculture and timeous payments will go a long way in making the seasons even better.

External factors such as fuel price and electricity shortages should be dealt with in order to reduce cost of production and the effects they have on consumers.-ebusinesweekly