ZFU initiative to boost tobacco, tea farmers
THE Manicaland chapter of the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU) is working on a project to link tobacco and tea producers with banks and input suppliers.
In an interview, ZFU’s Manicaland provincial manager Mr Daniel Mungazi said the organisation was working with an association of 1 200 farmers in the Eastern Highlands, including 200 coffee farmers, to try to not only secure markets, but establish linkages with financiers such as banks.
“We are working with farmers in the tea industry and we have convinced them to open accounts with banks that we will not name for now, as a way of establishing working relationships that will enable them to apply for loans in the future,” he said.
“ZFU has also linked many tobacco farmers in the province with contractors who are providing them with inputs and, in some cases, extension services, as they seek to produce high-quality tobacco at the end of every season.”
Mr Mungazi said they were also mobilising macadamia and banana farmers to form associations that represented their interests.
“They need to form associations to attract funding,” he said. “Financiers are more comfortable dealing with groups than with individuals, which makes it vital for banana and macadamia farmers to be organised and avoid this culture of ‘each man for himself and God for us all’ that is making it difficult for them to secure critical services.”
Mr Mungazi said ZFU would continue with its core business of lobbying for financial support for farmers from Government and the private sector.
More stakeholder engagements with the private sector, he said, would be prioritised in future to ensure that the province established viable markets for crops such as bananas and macadamia, where a lot of middlemen were reportedly prejudicing farmers.
He said ZFU would be replicating the same initiative for horticulture farmers in areas such as Mutoko and Goromonzi.
“Horticulture groupings, for instance, irrigation schemes, are there, but what is needed is something bigger that can represent their interests as one,” said Mr Mungazi. “An association is the ideal option for them too.”
Mr Mungazi noted that resource constraints were limiting the capacity of the organisation to reach out to all farmers.
“Resources continue to affect our day-to-day running of activities to fully deliver our duties,” he said. “We need fuel and reliable vehicles, as well as expand our staff compliment to include facilitators or coordinators that will always be interacting with farmers. These need to be mobile, possibly through using motor bikes.”