ZFU urges farmers to take up value addition

Masvingo (Masvingo Star-New Ziana) – Farmers have been urged to join the value addition chain of their produce to help curb the profiteering by middlemen and other merchants which is hurting the country’s economy.

Speaking at the 79th congress of the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union in Masvingo, the farmers’ body president, Abdul Nyathi said farmers’ involvement in value addition would help rectify the issue of skyrocketing prices.

He said farmers should avoid being taken advantage of by middlemen and merchants by getting involved in the value chains of the produce, and ensure they were cost efficient.

This, he said, would help lower prices for food and other agricultural products.

“Indeed we need to transform our value chains to be cost efficient, diversified, and competitive and most importantly farmer-centric.

Further, it is hoped that diversification of agricultural value chains will cushion all value players from farm to fork against production marketing and financial risks,” said Nyathi.

In a separate interview, an A1 farmer, Tapera Chinakiwa bemoaned the skyrocketing prices of inputs.

“What is really disturbing is that prices are skyrocketing everyday and now we cannot purchase enough seed and fertilizers for the hectarage we envisage to put under different crop varieties. I’m an A1 farmer and cannot get a loan from the bank which is a big hindrance to my progress,” said Chinakiwa.

Echoing similar sentiments and the costs of milk production especially with the rising costs of stock feed, a dairy farmer at the congress was grateful for new information he received at the congress which would help reduce some of his costs.

“This congress helped us, we have broken the information gap, hiring private labs for the tests of our cows was costly and affecting production within our farms but at this congress we have learnt about the government labs which are going for only $2 per cow which is very cheap. But on the feeding, stock feed price is skyrocketing and it is affecting production,” he said.
Masvingo Star-New Ziana