Govt, banks conniving to sabotage Command Agriculture

AS I am writing, I am in a shop that sells agricultural inputs. Prices of farming inputs are unaffordable.

After a disorganised 20192020 season when inputs were distributed under Command Agriculture abruptly, some of us took it as a lesson learnt. But alas after a successful winter wheat season, where inputs were provided timeously under the command of the late Agriculture minister Perrance Shiri. It is now hell for farmers as the government is quite about how farmers who are registered under the Command Agriculture programme are going to access farming inputs.

The programme is now in shambles and chances are that next year Zimbabwe will not achieve its targeted economic growth. It seems the programme is being sabotages. President Emmerson Mnangagwa should get to the bottom of this disorganisation. Who is going to help bring sanity if the Executive is quiet about issues of bread and butter. I should give credit to the late Shiri and his team for trying hard during difficult situation to steer the ship under difficult circumstantiates.

I know farmers did pay CBZ as expected, but that was due to severe drought that affected the whole Sadc region and the government made a mistake by not declaring it a national disaster. Government and CBZ must meet and clarify how farmers who registered under the Command Agriculture programme are going to be assisted.

Also CBZ bureaucracy is too much. It is taking over a month for a farmer’s paperwork to be processed.

I think the government and CBZ suspend the long processes in obtaining farming inputs and go for the quickest method that can serve Zimbabwe agriculture sector from collapsing.

Manual vouchers must be brought back instead of a farmer to wait for an e-voucher that is taking nearly a month to come.

I am far away from those who have power to make things happen and I pray for my suggestions to be looked into as this has a bearing on the economy.

If we want to turn around the fortunes of the economy, we should start by revitalising the agriculture sector and it is prudent to work on government bureaucracy.