Bananas will soon feel the heat Banana plantation
bananas

The Chipinge banana project lies in agro-ecological zone five, a predominantly dry, semi-arid and low-rainfall region with annual precipitation of between 350mm and 550mm

Jeffrey Gogo  Climate Story
BANANAS are changing the lives for rural farmers in Chipinge, about 450km south-east of Harare.
In Chibuwe village, deep inside the drought and flood-prone Save Valley, 100 farmers are benefiting from a new 40-hectare irrigated banana project, a joint venture between the farmers, Usaid and Matanuska, a Malaysian fruit marketer.

The Zimbabwe Agricultural Income and Employment Development Programme, as the project is called, has revitalised dysfunctional irrigation equipment, improved water use efficiency and enhanced climate resilience by raising incomes, crop diversification, provision of inputs and farmer training.

Mrs Martha Chitore says she has seen better fortunes from bananas, a welcome alternative to the rapidly receding incomes from her sugar beans, groundnut and maize produce of many years.

Since harvesting started in July, the 50-year- old mother of three has sold a cumulative 4 039kg of bananas to Matanuska at an average US26c per kg, grossing US$1 161.

After paying back loans for fertilisers and seedlings at an expensive 65 percent rate and deducting other costs such as management and storage fees, Mrs Chitore netted US$346.

High costs

The initial production costs are high, but she believes they are worth it and will ease with each passing year, as assured by Matanuska, the partnering firm responsible for management, financing and marketing.

In a single harvest, Mrs Chitore has raked in almost two-thirds of her entire annual earnings from previous agricultural activities. Yet, there is still four to six tonnes of bananas to harvest, which could push her aggregate bottom-line in the current year to nearly US$1 000.

“I think bananas have created an income source for us, but right now it is difficult measuring the full impact because we are still paying back the high-cost loans,” Mrs Chitore said in an interview.

“We are now able to pay up other levies such as electricity (for irrigation purposes). If the input costs are eliminated or reduced, bananas may be the future. However, the challenge we face now is that the fruit is ripening on the field and may rot. The buyer (Matanuska) has not come to collect produce for a long while, which could lower quality and incomes.”

Cultivated bananas are usually harvested when they reach full size, but are not yet ripe. They are then transported green and ripened by exposure to some gas when they have reached their destination.

Chibuwe Irrigation Management Committee chairperson Mr Alec Damiso said the coming of bananas had improved water supplies, raised incomes and given hope for increasing production after many years of struggling.

“This specific project has managed to bring us water, which we ourselves failed to do since 2000 when the irrigation system broke down. We have repeatedly tried raising money to repair the borehole engine without success. Bananas have changed all that, coming with new viable income, which allows farmers more diversification.”

Positive change

Mrs Chitore has dedicated a fifth of her one-hectare plot to bananas, which is the mandatory acreage for the rest of the farmers in the project that started in July last year. Zim-AIED deputy chief of party Mr Kuda-kwashe Ndoro said 10ha were planted under flood irrigation at Musikavanhu A5 block and 10ha at Chibuwe C block, both Government established schemes, but run down over the years.

These schemes will eventually expand to 40ha of bananas bringing more farmers on board. He expects average yearly yields of 40t per hectare and average earnings of US$3 600 per half-acre plot during the first year of production and US$5 000 annually for the following five years.

“Zim-AIED uses an agricultural hub approach which seeks to bring together at each hub site smallholder farmers, input suppliers, buyers, credit, training in farming as a business and various types of technical assistance to create a supportive environment in which the smallholder farmers can thrive,” he said.

Contracted Matanuska banana farmers are expected to reach 1 000 in the short term, both at Chibuwe and Mutema, where another project is running with 250 farmers. Richard Chivandire, finance director at Matanuska, said the project had empowered farmers economically and with skills training.

“A sustainable win-win model has been developed with the support and full engagement of local traditional leadership, local authorities and Government through Agritex,” he said.

“Farmers are guaranteed access to markets and best in practice agronomic methods of growing and managing banana plantations. The impact on income levels has been enormous.”

For those involved, average monthly incomes had climbed 11-fold to US$300 from US$25 in the pre-banana era, he argued.
Chivandire said banana production had not intensified competition for water, a scarce resource in that part of the world, but that through irrigation rehabilitation, “other crops had been accommodated well”.

The banana plant, the fourth largest fruit crop in the world, is a thirsty crop requiring lots of water heightening the risk of failure when adequate amounts are missing.

It flourishes in high temperate zones, much like Chibuwe, but struggles during drought and is easily destroyed by rough storms. Politicians, too, are upbeat. Chipinge Ward 20 councillor, Charles Mahlonga, said the project was improving agriculture production and livelihoods, having managed to resuscitate an irrigation system that died many years ago.

“There has been growing interest in the production of bananas in Chibuwe. The project had few takers when it started a year ago, but the land under bananas has grown vastly, indicative of the faith farmers now have in the project,” Mahlonga explained.

“Water distribution and use have improved greatly, benefiting even those farmers not growing bananas in adjacent fields.” But not everyone is over the moon with the banana venture. Others believe it is exploitative and ripping farmers off. A farmer who refused to be named said even with input repayments, netting US$83 from 997kg of banana was scandalous.

The farmer alleged Matanuska was grossing nearly US$1 000 from the same quantity of bananas, factoring in the final retail selling price, which is anything up to US$1 per kg.

Save River key to sustainability

The Chibuwe banana project was seldom built with climate change in mind. It neglected key future changes in local climates such as the projected increase in the frequency and extremity of droughts or tighter water shortages.

In the main, the project is profit-driven, more so for the bigger partner who is not the farmer, as with any other venture similarly structured, unless if it was humanitarian. Chivandire was not even entirely convincing on climate change, preferring instead a generalised statement.

He said: “As far as climate change is concerned, Matanuska applies environmentally friendly agronomic practices in all areas it operates. We do not use harmful chemicals, promote the cutting down of trees or apply other environmentally unfriendly policies.”

Ndoro said: “In terms of climate change, well it affects everyone. If the Sabi dries it dries for everyone.”
To its credit, however, in Chibuwe, ZIM-AIED managed to create a much more reliable income source for the farmer, revitalise an under-utilised irrigation system and create opportunities for crop diversification. Combined, these factors are crucial for building climate resilience among poor rural households.

Apart from continued farmers’ interest and the commercial benefits thereof, the sustainability of the project going forward hinges in great part on the health of the Save River, the main water source. Save, Zimbabwe’s biggest river, stretches 450km from Wedza in Mashonaland East to Manicaland then into the Indian Ocean, supporting several thousands of farmers within its 49 000 square kilometres catchment.

But there is increasing evidence the mighty Save is no longer as mighty and, in some areas, is rapidly turning into vast islands of dry sand due to siltation and other changes in the climate.

As it is, the Chipinge banana project lies in agro-ecological zone five, a predominantly dry, semi-arid and low-rainfall region with annual precipitation of between 350mm and 550mm.

A new World Bank report estimates that water sources like river Save in sub-Saharan Africa may lose up to 50 percent of their water in 30 years due to global warming, sparking an unprecedented water crisis. Yet, irrigation sustains farming in Chipinge.

A dried up Save will cause widespread social suffering. But as things stand, it is happy days for Chipinge banana growers.
God is faithful.

 Email: [email protected]

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