Union President Wonder Chabikwa told The Zimbabwean that the soya bean crop was drought affected and farmers’ woes were being compounded by the problem of unfair pricing.
He reiterated the need for a commodity exchange for farmers to sell their products. “If we had a commodity exchange prices would be better as buyers would bid and compete. The current situation means that unscrupulous buyers negotiate directly with the farmers and because of their desperate need for cash the farmers settle for far less than their crop’s worth,” Chabikwa said.
“We thought farmers would be getting at least $600 per tonne for soya beans but at the moment on the official market it’s going for around $580 per tonne. But some dealers are going directly to the farmers and negotiating prices as low as $500,” he added.
Maize is similarly undervalued. “Our crop is not genetically modified so we thought it would fetch a premium price of not less than $400 per tonne. But in the absence of a market, farmers are selling for as low as $200 per tonne to private buyers – again because of the need for cash,” Chabikwa said. The tobacco selling seen was coming to a close satisfactorily, he said. But there had been a few problems with Class B buyers who were working in collusion with some people at the auction floors who would reject some crops and later buy them on the cheap.
“We also had our perennial problem whereby the contract farmers were selling their crop at over $5 while at the auction floors the price hit the ceiling at $4,99,” Chabikwa said.
The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board says 127 million kilogrammes of the crop has been sold. Forecasts predicted an estimated 170 million kg crop this season.
Post published in: Agriculture