The big lie – former Zimbabwean white farmers are not driving maize production in Zambia

How does Zimbabwe compare?

Zimbabwe has run several farm inputs programmes over the past decade. Under the central bank, several input schemes were run, which handed free or subsidized seed and farm implements to smallholder farmers. However, there were multiple programmes running concurrently. They were poorly monitored, which made them ineffective and prone to abuse.

Currently, Zimbabwe has a presidential agricultural support input scheme for the 2015/16 summer cropping season. According to the 2016 budget statement, inputs are benefiting 300 000 vulnerable households, mainly in maize and small grains production. According to finance minister Patrick Chinamasa, $28 million (about 0.7 percent of national budget) was set aside for the programme, which has been blighted by accusations of partisan allocation of inputs.

Over the past two years, Zambia has allocated an average K1 billion to (FISP), which is about $100 million and equivalent to 2 percent of its total budget.

However, over the same decade that Zambia was ramping up its maize output due to farm subsidies, Zimbabwe was not paying its own farmers for maize delivered to the state grain buyer, GMB. According to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, government paid out nearly $68 million to pay farmers for grain delivered.  The $67.8 million was made up of 2013/14 arrears of $44.9 million, and $22.9 million to pay for 2015 deliveries.

Official data shows that in the 2014/15 season, the Zimbabwe government owed input suppliers – seed houses and fertliser manufacturers – a total of $6.6 million, which it says it is now clearing.

With the GMB not paying them for grain, many maize farmers have over the years deserted maize and switched to cash crops, especially tobacco. While this helped boost tobacco output, maize production has suffered.

Conclusion

The claim that white ex-Zimbabwean farmers are now feeding their former homeland makes for good campaign slogans against the Zimbabwean government. However, it is not true, and does nothing to help Zimbabwe learn from how its northern neighbor has actually succeeded. While subsidies alone may not work in the long term, it is evident that Zimbabwe needs to find a better way to support farmers who have left food cropping for better rewarding cash crops.- The Source

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