Empowering farmers way to go

EDITOR — With agriculture being one of the key economic sectors in the country, many people tend to underestimate its complications.

Despite the huge role farmers play in our lives, most farmers continue to face great challenges in their daily lives.

With the Command Agriculture in place in Zimbabwe, there is a need to remove all barriers in the agricultural sector. Many farmers suffer from lack of finance and physical infrastructure. As such they end up producing goods at a high prices.

Poor farming techniques and lack of knowledge are also impeding progress in the agricultural sector because without an understanding of different requirements, it is difficult for farmers to translate their commodities into goods and services.

Government recently said it was relaxing the importation of agricultural inputs. It also said it would import directly from international manufacturers to make the inputs affordable to the farmer. This is most welcome because limited access to quality farm inputs has been a stumbling block to the sector’s fast transformation.

Moreover, many farmers rely too much on the rain agriculture because they cannot afford to install irrigation infrastructure. But with the inexorable climate change, there will be a need for them to install technology to enhance efficiency and productivity.

Wheat farmers currently face losses because of lack of production and post-harvest technologies.

Therefore farmers need to be empowered financially, educationally and with equipment for them to raise the agricultural sector to new levels. Denzel Jonasi.