Unforeseen opportunities for urban farmers

WHEN the coronavirus pandemic reached our shores early last year, it infused a sense of hopelessness into all spheres of life in which happiness only manifested as just but an occasional episode in the general drama of pain.

It, however, took the astute response by the Government to quickly impose a lockdown in which all but a few services were allowed to remain operational under the bracket of ‘essential services’ that remain critical even under a state of disaster.

Such services were the only ones Government allowed to operate, but with strict compliance to the set WHO guidelines on minimising the spread of the virus.

Agriculture was one of them.

And once it was branded an essential service, that meant communal farmers that supply fresh produce to markets in towns and cities around the country were expected to keep the supply chain alive although their biggest undoing was going to be the absence of their traditional clients most of whom were not allowed to go to work.

This meant that they would do their business in specified hours as well, which also complicated matters, as many of them would go home without concluding their sales.

Produce would either go to waste or they would just slash prices and offload the produce to the few buyers that would have sneaked their way to the markets.

On the other hand, businesses, schools and churches, to name a few, were among the biggest casualties of the lockdown since they are known to be the nuclei of gatherings under normal circumstances, so most urbanites suddenly found themselves with a lot of leisure at their hands.

This meant that they could do many other things that did not breach lockdown regulations other than just sitting at their homes and feeling sorry for themselves.

Farming immediately became their haven and so many of the perennial farmers plus new ones started preparing land and planting crops for the 2021 season.

Some even joined Government’s climate-proofed Pfumvudza/Intwasa concept and received inputs.

The heavens also responded positively and let huge downpours of rain drench the earth to nurture the greenery that currently characterises the precincts of most urban centres and backyards of most spacious homes.

The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) did well to come into the fray and help with certification of some fields as either safe or unsafe for urban agriculture to safeguard the environment and water sources from pollution and siltation caused by farming chemicals and activities respectively.

What is exciting is the fact that most of the farmers now have very good looking crops, especially maize at various stages of growth with most angling towards ripening.

Such a development means that urbanites have this season taken care of most of their food security worries that they used to burden the rural farmers with.

Many are most likely to produce enough to feed families and even sell the surplus.

Already, their success story has started affecting communal farmers that come from areas such as Domboshava, Murehwa, Mutoko and Seke, as they are also churning produce into the same markets that communal farmers hunt in.

The development means that farmers from outside towns may now be forced to seek alternative markets or reduce prices to remain attractive although such a route will eventually lead to their demise unless the current goings-on may only be one-moment wonder that will soon be fizzling out.

It means communal farmers will need to up their game either in terms of the quality of their produce or vigorously search for new markets, including those outside the country.

They may also need to gather market intelligence so that they produce crops for specific markets where they will not face stiff competition as is currently happening.

In this case their urban rivals always wield an unfair advantage over them as they do not have much to talk of in terms of costs, especially for transport as most of them are found in the residential areas where the buyers and consumers of the produce are also situated.

Urban farmers will just sell from their fields and do not need even to go to the markets where they will be expected to pay for vending space and they are not at risk of incurring storage losses as they in most cases only harvest what buyers want and their produce will always be sold fresh.

I have since observed that many vegetable vendors in the residential areas are no longer going to Mbare to buy produce, but are liaising with farmers in their localities to get the produce.

In the event that next season is blessed with good rains again, that may mean some of the communal farmers may be forced to abandon urban markets for something else as more urbanites are likely to start farming in earnest once they realise that they can take care of food security concerns easily and also earn some income without much hassle through farming initiatives.

It is, however, critical for the urban farmers to always respect laws of the environment and desist from doing streambank cultivation, which ends up polluting and silting water bodies around towns, some of which keep drinking water for the people.

People have this tendency of easily getting carried away and once other urbanites realise that their counterparts this year made good earnings from farming, they will most likely be tempted to try it out too, but the limiting factor will obviously be land.

This will unfortunately push some people into breaking the law and do their farming activities on land that is not earmarked to be used for that.

There is also the big risk of farmers using wetlands for farming, which is not good for the environment and in most cases attracts the wrath of the law.

Maybe it is time EMA puts stiffer penalties for such offences on the table to deter would-be offenders before they even think of breaking the law.-herald.cl.zw