Bumper harvest: The ball is in GMB’s court Dr Made
DR MADE . . . “The point is that now agriculture is in every corner and every village, why should the people suffer because of poor banking facilities?“

DR MADE . . . “The point is that now agriculture is in every corner and every village, why should the people suffer because of poor banking facilities?“

George Chisoko THE INTERVIEW
With Zimbabwe poised for a bumper crop harvest on the back of the successful Command Agriculture Programme and good rains, Herald Senior Assistant Editor George Chisoko (GC) spoke to the Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Dr Joseph Made (JM) on the preparedness of the Grain Marketing Board and other institutions to handle the bumper crop.

GC: Minister, what is your assessment of the cropping season?

JM: We need to compliment the farmers, as they have done well. Not only that but they are also driving industry, that I can assure you. In terms of production of inputs for agriculture and production of food in terms of agro-processing. This will fuel employment and it will fuel business opportunities in terms of income.

GC: Is the Grain Marketing Board prepared to handle the expected bumper maize crop?

JM: I was talking to the people at GMB after what I saw on the ground. While we are worried about the crops, I asked them have we considered how many people are needed at the GMB depots?

In terms of employment, all the people who lost jobs, we have to re-engage them on a contract basis because how are we going to handle maize? How are we going to handle sorghum or pearl millet? How are we going to handle the wheat crop that we are anticipating to harvest when we have finished investing in it?

When you are talking about employment creation, just at that local level in terms of the GMB – you know they also handle groundnuts, there are beautiful groundnuts out there, they also handle soyabeans and so on – those are plenty of jobs.

As I was addressing the party leadership at the village level, they were asking all these questions about handling the crop. The crop is there, there’s no doubt about that but how are we going to handle the crop in terms of the skilled people?

When you are handling the crop in terms of packaging and maintaining all of that, we need skilled people for a lot of these processes and those people are there. We are going to re-engage as much as we can in order to handle the grain. The amount of grain that will be there far surpasses the grain that has been there in the past 10 to 15 years.

GMB is also going to be handling the Presidential inputs for the next summer as well as the command inputs for the next summer. So that means it’s necessary for there to be preparedness in terms of the workforce that will be working at GMB depots and satellite depots (and) we will be opening more.

GC: Minister, there is also the issue of grain bags or sacks.

JM: We’ve put pressure on GMB to find out where are they with availability of sacks. The most important thing for the farmers is to combine harvest and then once the maize has been shelled, where are they going to put it? It needs good and strong storage bags.

When we come to cotton it will be the same. You can imagine that if last year we handled 30 000 metric tonnes of cotton and all of a sudden this year it’s nearly 200 000 metric tonnes it’s a major increase.

I think there’s a case for better coverage of the agricultural sector because you can see that everyday there’s a good subject matter. With cotton, for example, there’s cotton itself, cotton seed, cotton lint which all leads to the resuscitation of jobs and economic activity.

In actual fact, we might have to subject cotton companies to the same programmes that GMB was put under. We must find out from them what is their budget to resuscitate the depots as we did with GMB? We need people to go out to the various places and assess the level of preparedness at those depots.

GC: How are farmers going to be paid, Minister, given that some do not have bank accounts?

JM: Every farmer, it doesn’t matter whether you are a tobacco farmer or maize or cotton, needs to open a bank account. We need to get into the mode where farmers assist the Treasury and the Reserve Bank. If you don’t have a bank account, you are not helping us.

We must also take to task banks like Agribank and ask them what they are doing. They are just in the urban areas. Agriculture is thriving under the different schemes, Command Agriculture, Presidential Inputs Scheme and other schemes, let’s speak to Mr (Sam) Malaba (Agribank CEO) and ask him where he is. Are they only focused on the urban areas? What about the Agribank branches in other parts of the country?

We work with CBZ and there’s also BancABC which works in sugarcane. But the biggest question to our agricultural bank is where are they with entering the villages. Real income is being earned there, be it tobacco, sugarcane, cotton or maize. What are they doing with the branches that they closed?

Those things used to work when agriculture was peaking. Now agriculture is peaking again so the CEO of Agribank must be questioned where they are and what they are doing. GMB and the likes are resuscitating, so what of Agribank?

We need the positive story to find where they are and what they are doing. The farmers are complaining that they have to travel long distances and spend a lot of money to get to their banks. The old branches have closed and they want to know what is being done to change that.

The point is that now agriculture is in every corner and every village, why should the people suffer because of poor banking facilities? Let’s take banking to the farmers.

GC: In your interactions with farmers, what could be reason for the reluctance to open bank accounts?

JM: Farmers are concerned with regards to opening bank accounts and availability of cash. They complain that when they have to open bank accounts, which they are happy to open, they have to spend money to do so.

They don’t mind paying when their crop has yielded returns but to open account they have to pay. And then as a person who is growing a crop that is foreign currency earning they want a little bit more cash.

There are places out where they stay where they cannot swipe and so they genuinely want to know what they can do.

I said recently in the Senate that it doesn’t matter whether you are selling groundnuts or peanuts, as long as you are coming to sell you need to have a bank account. We want that so that when we say we are paying instantly that’s what it means.

GC: Minister, in the wake of problems faced at the tobacco auction floors, farmers want a guarantee that they will be paid their money when they deliver to the GMB.

JM: They don’t have to stress over the fact that their money will only come after two or three weeks. As long as you deliver and the scale records whatever it is, you are getting paid and it’s reflected in your account.

If you look at the tobacco farmers, we had a bit of a problem at the start but I can tell you if you go to the tobacco farmers they will tell you that they have nothing to complain about, their money is in the bank.

They might have a bit of a problem accessing cash but the fact that the bank account has the full amount is a good thing. And we did pay the farmers.

GC: How can the agriculture sector be supported by other industries?

JM: We have the telecommunications sector as an example. Operators like NetOne have to play a role in the farming sector. We need packages for farmers.

If you speak to Econet they will tell you that they are busy, they are looking at cotton farmers and want to put them on EcoCash and so on. We hear them talking about it so now we want to know where NetOne is and what they are doing? You have to be innovative and look at getting into the farming sectors.

Life is now around the farmers and these people are not just the older generation. There are very young farmers who I have seen in places like Chimanimani and I’ll tell you it’s unbelievable. Even the ones in cotton and tobacco, there are young families who are dynamic will take advantage of the technology platforms.

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