Agricultural inputs are hard to find on shop shelves in rural areas, and farmers in many parts of the country are yet to prepare the land for the coming farming season.
Zimbabwe’s hope of economic revival – after successive years of drought and lack of investment in its controversial land reform programme – rests on the performance of the agricultural sector, the backbone of the country’s industrial and manufacturing sectors.
The government said it would target 500,000 hectares of land for food production in 2008 under a “Champion Farmer” programme, and pledged 10 million litres of diesel, 12,000 tonnes of seed and 450,000 tonnes of fertiliser for selected farmers.
Champion Farmers are those the government has deemed productive and worthy of reward. However, their numbers have not been revealed, and there have been no reports as to whether any inputs have actually been delivered. For ordinary farmers, this season is little different from the successive years of rising fertiliser and fuel costs.
“The problem we are facing today is perennial; the government has not learnt any lessons from the past,” said Nicholas Nyathi, a small-scale farmer in Nyamandlovu, which used to be a prime farming area in the southern region of Matabeleland.
“We are now supposed to be preparing the land for farming – the first rains are due in a few weeks’ time – but we do not have any seed and fertiliser in place. We are headed for the same disaster we have witnessed before.”
Opposition politician and agricultural expert Renson Gasela has attacked the Champion Farmer strategy, both as a concept and in terms of delivery. “There are no inputs on the ground, and what we are hearing from the press is that a lot is being done to assist targeted farmers, and those targeted are said to be top farmers, but the number of top farmers is small compared to over one million small-scale farmers around the country.”