agriculture

TRAINING & EDUCATING COMMUNAL FARMERS COULD INCREASE AGRICULTURAL YIELDS

Agriculture production in the country suffered a massive decline after the so called land reform as the new farming community lacked the know-how, the knowledge and the capital to maintain the level of production of the former farmers. In any case the reforms were carried out in one of the most frenzied fashion while the debate or controversy of these reforms still dominate public discourse. However the reality is that agriculture experienced one of the most devastating decline in its history and the country being mainly an agro- based economy; the economy took a huge depression losing as much as 50% of the GDP by 2007.

The issue is still controversial yet the country still has to revive agriculture to not only avoid the now routine food shortages but to also contribute towards the economy’s recovery. To that end the just ended tobacco marketing season and the figures on the composition of the farmers that produced the crop reveal an interesting statistic. According to the figures from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board approximately 66 000 farmers registered to grow the tobacco crop this coming season  32% were communal farmers while the A1 farmers constituted about 48% with major farmers constituting the rest. Of course the production of commercial farmers will be higher than that of most communal farmers but the import of these statistics is the embracing of tobacco farming by the previously ignorant communal farmers.

 There is no doubt the dollarization of the economy has played key role in motivating these farmers but it is also fair to say there was an effort of imparting of knowledge and skills  to these farmers from how this crop is grown to its harvesting . Of course the quality of the crop may not be as good as that of well financed farmers but the bottom line is that production of this crop has grown from a low of below 50 million kilogrammes to about 130 million achieved this year. This has happened as some farms that previously produced tobacco remain idle in one of the legacies of the land reform meaning clearly it is these communal farmers that have stepped in. In fact communal farmers when armed with the right information or knowledge they can still produce considerably even with less resources and the production of the staple maize crop provides clear testimony of this.

The Grain Marketing Board previously used to estimate that as much as 60% of the maize it collected at its depots came from communal farmers while cotton is also produced mainly by communal farmers in the centre north of country. This means stakeholders will have to educate communal farmers about other crops such as soya beans, paprika, potatoes etc as these still remain in short supply locally forcing companies like National Foods to import these or actually stop producing certain products.

The results in the tobacco crop show that an effort to get communal farmers to join has paid off and more communal farmers continue to join in the production of this crop. In fact the country is now fifth largest producer of tobacco in the world thanks to largely to these peasant farmers that have joined the ranks of tobacco farmers recently and the country certainly looks poised to regain its status as the largest producer of Virginia tobacco. With the most ideal economic environment currently prevailing the training of communal farmers on growing various other crops will pay off just as it has done with tobacco.