eBusiness Weekly
Farmer organisations have expressed concern over the recently announced policy that requires members to deliver controlled crops to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) within 14 days of harvesting to curb side-marketing.
Recently, GMB issued a statement advising all producers of controlled products that they are now required to deliver their products within 14 days of harvesting.
The controlled crops are maize, soya beans, wheat and barley.
The above crops are controlled under Statutory Instrument 145 of 2019 (Control of Sale Maize), SI 97/2021 (Control of Sale Soya Beans), and SI 188/2021 (Control of Sale of Wheat and Barley).
In separate interviews, farmer representative organisations said while the move to curb side-marketing was a step in the right direction, the policy that requires producers to deliver the produce to GMB within two weeks of harvesting is detrimental to subsistence farmers.
“Through the policy, authorities are trying to address issues of side-marketing, you would find out that there are some unscrupulous and undisciplined farmers.
“Such acts are detrimental to the investors who would have injected their money to contract the farmers to grow the crops.
“When investors put their money into a project they expect a return, but when those contracted to grow the crops engage in unethical activities like side-marketing, that is not acceptable at all.
“When I look at it conversely, it becomes punitive to subsistence farmers as the law is not selective.
“Subsistence farmers are growing for their own consumption, so having them to deliver their produce to GMB is tantamount to impoverishing them,” said the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) president Dr Shadreck Makombe.
Already, he said ZCFU was engaging the Government to reach a common ground.
One of the major contributory factors to side marketing was low producer price by GMB that made it difficult for the farmers to break-even and return to the fields the next season.
The Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director, Paul Zakariya, echoed similar sentiments adding that it is imperative that as the policy is implemented farmers are not inconvenienced through additional costs.
“The SI is meant to protect contractors’ investments as well as assist farmers to adhere to contracts.
“In implementing the SI, it will be necessary to ensure that farmers are not unnecessarily inconvenienced and that costs and losses do not pile up on farmers,” he said.
Meanwhile, farmers have welcomed new producer prices for various crops for the 2022 farming season reflective of the obtaining economic situation.
The new floor producer prices for maize and traditional grains have been set at $75 000 per tonne up from $58553 for maize and $70 263,90 for traditional grains set earlier.
For soya beans, the floor producer price has been set at $171 495 up from $125 535,17 while the price for sunflower is now $205 794,52 a tonne, up from $150 686,20.
