By Fidelis Manyange

DESPITE losing her husband in a car accident two decades ago, Macheke farmer Mayiwepi Jiti has persevered to become one of the top farmers not only in Macheke but throughout Mashonaland East.
Growing up in the high-density suburb of Mufakose, she did her primary and secondary education at Gwinyiro Primary School and Mufakose High 1 respectively.
On leaving school, she trained as a primary school teacher and befriended the chalk for a decade before her husband literally forced her to resign from the noble profession in 1999. Little did she realise that husband, Golden Munesu Jiti, was preparing her for the best occupation of her life.

A former farm manager, Golden quit his job to become a full-time farmer at the family’s 341-hectare Yardford Farm in Macheke.
Recalls Mrs Jiti: “One day my husband asked me to accompany him to the Ministry of Education offices at Murehwa Growth Point where he bluntly told the education officials that I was tendering my resignation with immediate effect.
“That is how I left teaching to venture into full-time farming. At first, my husband concentrated on crops such as maize, tobacco and wheat while I ventured into horticulture, cultivating onions and tomatoes for the local market and peas, chillies, baby corn, fine beans, granadilla and passion fruit for the export market.”
However, agriculture was not entirely new to the award-winning farmer who was previously mentored by her uncle, Anthony Marimo. Marimo owned a farm in Mazowe where she spent most of her school holidays fishing, cleaning pigsties and performing other menial tasks.
The Jiti family, which was based in Mvurwi, later acquired the 341-ha Farmwala (Pvt) Ltd in Macheke, whose name they subsequently changed to Yardford Farm.
In 2004 the Jitis planted 100ha of tobacco, 50ha of wheat and 40ha of peas, among other horticultural crops.
“When we arrived in Macheke, from Mvurwi, we engaged one Madzibaba Madziro and his family to mould bricks for the construction of barns.
“Our neighbouring farmers — Ian Herd, Peter Robert Morgan and Zee — sold us their leftover seedlings which were the basis of our first tobacco crop.”
Since the rains alone would not sustain their farming activities, they embarked on dam construction.
Unfortunately, her hubby would not live long enough to see the completion of this project which is now functional.
“White farmers in our area jealously guarded their foreign markets to the exclusion of black farmers. To sell our products overseas, we engaged white farmers such as John Parkin and Mitchell & Mitchell, among others, to sell our produce on our behalf. The problem was that they paid us in local currency when, in fact, they were selling our products in forex,” lamented Jiti.
Worse still, one Graham Impi exported 140 tonnes of peas on behalf of black farmers and pocketed all the proceeds.
Her husband’s untimely death on June 27 2004 was a mortal blow to her as a farmer. She was left to fend for a large nuclear and extended family as well as 300 farm workers who expected to be paid their wages at monthend, come rain or sunshine.
It was time to think outside the box.
To get around the problem of middlemen ripping her off, she approached ZimTrade and attended international shows where she obtained information on markets, how to effectively export as well as the type of agricultural products in demand where and when.
After engaging ZimTrade she was off to the UK to exhibit her products at an international expo were she eventually got more clients and orders after impressing the buyers.
“The quality of my Zimbabwean products impressed clients over those from other African countries like Kenya, among others,” says Jiti.
Working in conjunction with ZimTrade, the intrepid woman managed to penetrate the international market with a bang by exporting about 450 tonnes of products a week to Holland and much more to the UK. Thanks to her expanding export market, she won the international gold award for the best quality products for fruits and vegetables exhibited in France.
Never a crybaby, Jiti has soldiered on to become one of the leading farmers in and around Macheke town.
She has managed to finish and equip the dam as well as increase the area under cultivation to 190 ha irrigated by her four fully functional centre pivots acquired with the help of her tobacco earnings.
A former vice-president of Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU), Jiti is currently the president of the Zimbabwe Integrated Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZICFU), formed in 2017. ZICFU is also a member of the International Tobacco Growers’ Association, which boasts a membership of 15 000 across the country.
“By forming the ZICFU, we were looking to raise the profile of women and our youths because the existing farmers’ unions were not providing cutting-edge information in keeping with a fast-changing world where farming is getting mechanised and technology has become so advanced that everything is done at the touch of a button,” explains Jiti.
The organisation has set up information research centres meant to bring together different stakeholders in the agricultural value chain.
“As farmers, we must be innovative so that other than producing crops, we venture into processing so that we do away with middlemen who are fleecing farmers in all agricultural value chains,” said Jiti.
Under her hands-on management style, Yardford Farm is currently involved in tobacco, maize, wheat, potatoes, onion, leafy vegetables, baby corn, green mealies, fruits as well as cattle and goat rearing.
A stone’s throw away from Macheke town, Yardford Farm is a shining beacon for women farmers — present and future.
As one who leads by example, Jiti is an empowerment advocate for women who were, or are still, segregated by their male counterparts and other institutions to rise up and shine.
And thanks to her zeal and stamina, thousands of women farmers are competing with — and even outperforming — their male counterparts.