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Edgar Vhera Agriculture Specialist Writer

AFC Leasing Company has announced an overwhelming uptake of combine harvesters under its leasing programme, thanks to its flexible payment terms that include barter trading and use of multiple currencies.

In an interview yesterday, AFC Holdings group head strategy, marketing and corporate communications, Ms Caroline Mozhendi said following the introduction of flexible payment terms for hiring of combines, farmers had come in numbers seeking the services.

“There is an overwhelming uptake of our combine services as a result of our flexible payment terms. Farmers can make payments using grain or other classes of crop produce through a bartering arrangement, the Zimbabwean dollar and all legal multi-currency regimes,” said Ms Mozhendi.

The move is meant to give impetus to the wheat harvesting process ahead of the forthcoming 2022/23 cropping season.

“AFC Leasing is providing agricultural mechanisation services to all categories of farmers countrywide. Currently our wheat harvesting mission has spread its tentacles to the country’s provinces of Manicaland, Masvingo, Matabeleland North, Midlands and Mashonaland Central, East and West,” added Ms Mozhendi.

The company has also set up distribution cluster centres with dedicated combine harvesters as indicated below: Mash West (14), Mash Central (7), Manicaland (7), Mash East (7), Masvingo (4) and Midlands (4).

The company has deployed in excess of 50 combines countrywide for the wheat harvesting programme to ensure harvesting is completed before the onset of the rains. To expedite the process, AFC has also added 10 more combines with a capacity to do 12 tonnes in an hour and cover at least 20 hectares per day.

“To improve our efficiency, we are now utilising our low beds to help move combines smoothly and faster to places where they are required. We have also spread our combines across the 22 cluster centres, focusing on wheat hot spots to improve the turnaround to farms,” further revealed Ms Mozhendi.

Harvesting progress is, however, being slowed by the process of moving combine harvesters from one farm to the other on low bed trucks that require escorts while field weed infestations and the smallholder farmers’ widely spaced locations and small wheat hectarages have not helped the process much.

To go round these obstacles, AFC Leasing is urging farmers to adopt good agronomic practices and consult their nearest Agritex extension officers for support. Smallholder farmers must also consider forming groups and secure harvesting equipment as a group to lower the transaction costs, as well as speed up the combining operations.

“This year farmers have committed large hectarages to wheat production and we are harvesting a lot of it compared to other years. We are extremely excited to be harvesting this bumper wheat harvest. We are encouraged to see that on some farms, yields are ranging between seven and nine tonnes per hectare,” she said.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Dr Shadreck Makombe also expressed satisfaction with the wheat harvesting services being offered by AFC Leasing so far.

“Our members are happy with wheat harvesting services being offered by AFC and have not recorded any serious challenges so far except for the contamination of good wheat by chuff in the early days. We encourage our farmers to quickly harvest their wheat to escape veld fires and pests,” said Dr Makombe.

The country is expecting over 380 000 tonnes of wheat from over 78 000ha of land put under the cereal this season.