ZCFU working on farmer database

THE Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) is working on coming up with a database of all farmers in the country, including those that fall under different farmers’ associations to push for loans and other forms of assistance both locally and regionally as a single unit.

In an interview, ZCFU president Mr Shadreck Makombe said they were organising an inaugural indaba for all farmers in the country so that they come up with an advocacy committee composed of representatives of different affiliations across the country.

This, he said, would help them push their concerns to Government and regional organisations.

“This meeting by all farmers associations will be held soon,” said Mr Makombe. “Its main agenda is for us to push for our concerns as one force. We are all farmers and we have one common goal of producing and taking Zimbabwe back to its position as the bread basket of Southern Africa.

“We have common problems, whether large or smallscale famers, so we want to push for our cause as one entity.”

Mr Makombe said after coming up with the data base, the committee will then vet all the farmers and come up with recommendations on the type of assistance that each farmer wanted.

“We will be advocating for licences to be availed to these farmers once we have a data base of our members,” he said. “We want to have a well organised committee that will be helping the farmers to improve on productivity.”

Mr Makombe said there was need for farmers to unite in the face of growing competition from other countries that were producing genetically modified products.