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Obert Chifamba Agri-Insight

MANY a times, farmers are faced with situations they easily interpret as sounding the death knell to their farming careers.

Surprisingly, they have in all cases proved to be more immortal than the proverbial cat with nine lives.

They have always lived to tell the story and to start a fresh season.

Of course, there is a common trend that always runs through all these difficult times and sadly, the farmers do not seem to realise how history keeps repeating itself.

In all the setbacks, mostly inspired by natural circumstances that are beyond their control and therefore difficult to contain effectively, they have found common ways of mitigating the possible harsh effects and come out bruised, but ready to face another season.

However, the sad thing is that they do not seem to think beyond mitigating the brutal effects of the disasters and make the most of them.

Essentially, the painful reality is that they always seem to see dead ends in everything that comes at them from the natural world and therefore do not picture possible routes they can take to undertake other enterprises that may leave them richer in the process.

On the one hand, there are a few with better access to resources who have seen the silver lining that comes with these difficult circumstances.

In the event of droughts, such farmers have tended to produce in excess using irrigation so that they can take care of the huge demand for crop products that is always born out of bad seasons.

If the problem is being caused by diseases or pests, they always have the capacity to secure the required chemicals to quell the threat and salvage good yields.

Under such circumstances, some of them have developed this knack of capitalising on the prevailing problem to quote atrocious prices that push their products out of the reach of the majority of the citizens.

Government has always shouldered the burden of ensuring no one dies from hunger.

There have also been some civic organisations that move in to work with Government or even independently to assist the people.

Just recently, the Meteorological Services Department (MSD) revealed that the country, like some of its regional neighbours in Southern Africa, is likely to receive normal to below normal rains due to the possible return of the El Nino phenomenon.

It is exciting to observe that everyone is duly working towards curtailing the harsh effects of the predicted dilemma and not looking at possible ways of making it work in their favour other than toning its impact down.

With the current push for farmers to inject a sense of business in all their operations, one would expect them to be looking for ways of both mitigating the harsh impact of El Nino and chances of generating some revenue, thanks to its coming.

It is an undeniable truth that most successful people capitalise on problems to make their fortunes, so farmers should also be searching for gaps to lurch onto and make some money instead of just mitigating the unruly effects of these threats and ending there.

The idea of mobilising resources to contain the impending disaster is noble because logically no one observes a stone that is about to strike them and remains transfixed to the spot.

They either duck, block it or move out of its way to escape and that is what our farmers are doing.

And that is normal and commendable.

I guess it may be asking for too much at this point to suggest that farmers should find a way of taking El Nino head-on but the long and short of this argument is that we need researchers and even climate scientists that can push to find out what farming activities farmers can do under the harsh conditions that usually accompany the El Nino phenomenon and come out with decent yields.

This is what farmers and other concerned stakeholders should be doing to complement the current push by Government for the adoption of farming practices that help climate-proof agriculture.

The avian flu outbreak that is currently ravaging neighbouring South Africa’s poultry industry has come with vast opportunities for Zimbabwean poultry producers to make money.

It may also be unfortunate that local poultry producers are currently grappling with the reality of failing to meet local demand but they should find a way of ensuring they can at least get a piece of the cake that has been created by avian flu in South Africa.

The problem may not leave all producers smiling all the way to the bank but the few that can tap into that market will also be helping the country get foreign currency it so direly needs for development.

The move to explore the South African market will also set the stage for the expansion of the local industry, as it will naturally have to increase production to meet both local and export demand effectively.

The good thing about this development is that in the push to meet demand for both the domestic and export markets, the farmers will be filling the void that has been their biggest undoing on the local market.

In the end they may not even need to look outside the borders for markets given that they are always complaining about imports killing their businesses and not addressing the root cause for the imports.

Once they demonstrate that the country can achieve self-sufficiency through local poultry production, they can re-capture the confidence of those businesses that had turned to imports because of erratic local supplies.

In business, it is not a bad thing to identify an opportunity and grab it.

It is what real business-minded people do and farmers should be no exception.

This projected El Nino naturally comes with food shortages for both humans and animals hence the need for proactive farmers not to just wait to roll out mitigating measures championed by Government but to also seek ways of making the most of it.

They need to identify ways of making sure there is alternative sources of feeds for animals while also exploring possible solutions of ensuring resources available are used optimally.

There is a lot of grass along highways as we speak and nothing stops the astute farmer from moving in to harvest and store it for later use.

They can even sell to those farmers in worst-hit areas or the perennially drought-stricken regions.

Those farmers harvesting their wheat can also store the stover and keep it safely for later use.

This means that predictions of hostile weather have, besides causing anxious moments for farmers, also brought in an opportunity for business to those that can move fast.