'No seed, no fertilizer, nothing,' cry farmers

BY VUSUMUZI SIFILE

CHIKOMBA — Any serious farmer gets worried when rains are delayed, even by a short while.  It is only natural that they start worrying about whether or not their seed will germinate when they finally manage to plant. But it is not so for most small-holder farmers in Chikomba, Mashonaland East.

With no seed at their disposal, the farmers could have been stranded had the rains arrived earlier.
“It is actually good that this year the rains have delayed a bit, otherwise we would have been caught unprepared — no seed, no fertiliser, nothing.

“It would have been so painful to just watch helplessly when the fields dry up before you plant,” said James Chikandiwa, a 67-year-old farmer in Sadza.

Unlike in the past when they could easily purchase seed from the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and local dealers, the situation has changed for the worse.

The GMB is usually without supplies, shattering the hopes of hundreds of small-scale farmers like Chikandiwa.

In most cases farmers have relied mostly on open pollinated seed maize, but this has been difficult over the last few years as farmers have struggled to get good harvests.

As the farming season drew closer, the farmers got more and more worried that this year they would not be able to plant on time because of lack of seed.

Their situation got so desperate that they sent a delegation to Harare to take their begging bowl to non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Their search took them to Oxfam GB, and they were not disappointed.

The organisation agreed to assist 14 000 farmers in the area with seed maize and top dressing fetiliser.
“Our intervention here was in response to a request by people who persistently came to my office,” said Peter Mutoredzanwa, the country director for Oxfam GB at a ceremony to hand over the seed and fertiliser to farmers at Sadza Growth Point on Wednesday.

Beneficiaries comprised mostly female-headed households, those with high dependency ratios and households affected by loss of harvest as well as families affected by HIV/Aids.

“This was not really our first intervention in this area. We had an earlier programme where we provided the poor farmers with vegetable seed.

“But things did not work so well, as most of them took the seed and sold it at bars. I do not think the seed and fertiliser we are distributing today will be sold.”

All the farmers participating in the programme receive fertiliser through direct distribution.

However, in case of seed, only 4 500 get it through direct distribution, while the rest get vouchers which they use to purchase seed from selected shops in the area.

Speaking at the same ceremony, Mashonaland East Governor Aeneas Chigwedere acknowledged that farming preparations were in a shambles.

“Every year people starve because of poor planning,” said Chigwedere, who spoke in Shona.
He said the farmers’ hopes of government assistance with inputs could be far-fetched because the state coffers were in a bad state.

“Last year our economy had collapsed completely, the government does not have many inputs to assist farmers. Let us use what we have.

“Even extension workers are no longer doing their job properly.

“There is chaos, especially uko kwatakagarisa vanhu patsva (at the resettlements), where people just farm without even digging contours.”

Although the seed has been dispatched to distribution points, the farmers’ nightmares are not over yet.
Greedy traditional leaders are said to be allocating themselves huge chunks of the donations.

“The problem is that in some cases village heads and other well-connected individuals register more than five people in one household.

“And because of their influence, it is easy for them to get the allocation before everyone else,” said another farmer, Maxwell Nzuma (59).

Despite recent pronouncements by President Robert Mugabe at the UN Food and Agriculture summit in Rome, Italy denouncing agricultural subsidies by mostly Western donors, the government’s failure to put in place proper systems for farmers to access inputs has left them with no option but turn to donors.

There are currently two major inputs support schemes in the country — the European Union’s Global Food Security Scheme, which is administered by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and another programme funded by the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DfID).

The government has also come up with its own schemes, but farmers have struggled to access money from banks because most of them lack relevant collateral security.