Delayed payments setting back farmers
FARMERS have sent a distress call to Government beseeching it to intervene and facilitate the immediate payment of their outstanding payments for cereals — wheat and maize delivered to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) during the marketing season.
GMB could not comment on the matter since last week with its corporate communications officer Mr Nixon Kanyemba saying he would relay the information once it was availed to him.
The farmers’ call comes amid revelations that many self-financing farmers were incapacitated to prepare meaningfully for the current summer season with others struggling to finance the production process, which is threatening to derail the country’s efforts to achieve food and nutrition security.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) president Dr Shadreck Makombe urged Government to ensure that farmers who delivered their produce to GMB were fully paid.
“Farmers sold their maize and traditional grains to GMB, with the latter selling these to millers for mealie meal and bread. The money generated from the sale by GMB should be used to pay farmers before it is delegated to other uses,” the ZCFU president said.
Dr Makombe added that if the country wanted to achieve food security and bumper harvests to fill the strategic grain reserves (SGRs), then farmers must be paid immediately to allow them to fund their operations effectively.
Meanwhile, GMB recently indicated that it had paid US$15 187 134 and $58 431 715 012, 96 for maize and other grains delivered as of November 15 but had not made any payments for wheat because Treasury had delayed disbursements of the fund. Efforts to get a comment from Treasury were unsuccessful.
GMB also indicated that it had taken delivery of 73 percent of its targeted maize tonnage as of November 10 but was struggling to make the payments.
The parastatal’s chief executive officer Dr Edson Badarai said GMB was currently engaging Government, as it sought to secure funds to pay farmers for their grain deliveries.
He confirmed that their depots had collected 83 409 tonnes out of a target of 115 000 tonnes as at November 10.
In a related matter, cotton farmers are also up in arms with Cottco for allegedly reneging on its promise to extinguish all farmers’ debts by end of October as promised at the World Cotton Day celebrations last month.
Cotton Producers and Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (CPMAZ) chairperson Mr Stewart Mubonderi said farmers with outstanding amounts had not yet been paid contrary to assurances that they would be paid by end of October.
“As farmers we are tired of these empty promises and we don’t know who to talk to now after GMB was mandated to take over some of Cottco’s duties recently. Furthermore, the distribution of inputs is happening slowly with only five percent having been distributed by end of last week,” he said.
Cottco had not responded to questions from this publication the payments issue by the time of going to press.
Speaking at this year’s World Cotton Day celebrations in Harare earlier last month Cottco board chair Mr Sifelani Jabangwe had promised that his organisation would clear all outstanding debts by end of October in response to queries raised by legislators from cotton growing areas who wanted to know when the affected farmers in their constituencies who had not yet been paid would receive their seed cotton money.
“Cottco has paid 70 percent of farmers’ dues from seed cotton delivered this year with the balance of 30 percent to be paid by end of October. In future we promise to pay farmers on time. The main challenge with cotton production is that it’s a 13-month industry from the time we prepare for planting until the time we get income from export proceeds. Farmers want payments within six months but this year we had liquidity challenges with our bankers and we could not draw down to pay farmers on time,” the Cottco board chair said.
Source Link: https://www.herald.co.zw/delayed-payments-setting-back-farmers/
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