By Professor Sheunesu Mpepereki

IN this third segment of our discussion on how to move Zimbabwe’s agriculture forward, we shall examine specific examples of practical initiatives farmers may fall back on in addressing the challenge of inputs.
We shall also examine our traditional approaches to the inputs issue.
Ideally farmers must obtain funding from banks for large scale commercial production.
For various reasons banks are unable or unwilling to lend to farmers.
The challenges need to be addressed.
Sanctions have been identified as a major debilitating factor.
We understand banks normally obtain off-shore funds that they on-lend local farmers and other businesses.
With the thawing of relations between Zimbabwe and some of these multi-lateral Western-backed institutions, are funds not being released to support agricultural production?
Reading from the press, one gets the impression things are looking up.
Or are the news reporters catching at the words that rhyme with our aspirations as Zimbabweans and letting the real meaning go past; that sanctions are very much in place.
Tiri kuitwa chikuku vatavata here?
Or is it all part of the sinister campaign by Western governments and donor agencies to lull Zimbabweans to sleep ivo vachingorumira muvhu, kazhinji panze chaipo!
The West attempts to deflect the full wrath of the people against them by claiming that they fully support the Zimbabwean populace but have ‘restrictive measures’ against President Robert Mugabe and his close associates?
How do you separate our leader from us?
And when they continue to attack our President, what dignity do the citizens remain with when the leader is demonised?
Then we are all demonised!
Are there any Zimbabweans foolish enough to think the sanctions are no longer targeted at all Zimbabweans?
This of course would exclude those Zimbabweans ‘vakapandukira nyika yavo savana Nyati’, those who crafted ZIDERA and continue to work closely with the enemy to sell out ‘nyika yedu yechipikirwa’.
If the West supports the people of Zimbabwe, they must deliberately make funds available to support food production, agriculture.
How can you be supporting Zimbabwe while at the same time taking all possible measures to starve the same population?
So who is fooling who?
We are still talking agriculture but exploring the sanctions dimension.
We do not want to use sanctions as an excuse for failing to lift our agriculture out of the doldrums.
But we must recognise their negative impacts.
They said AGRIBANK had been removed from the sanctions list.
What comfort are we as farmers supposed to derive from that?
Does it mean AGRIBANK can now access funds to loan to farmers?
One cannot help feel that we are being sold a dummy through all these reports which imply that Zimbabwe can now access funds from multi-lateral institutions such as the African Development Bank to support agriculture.
Now let us examine the other side of the coin.
Assuming funds are indeed available in the banks, we understand farmers are still unable to access them.
Why?
Because of stringent lending conditions.
The major condition demanded by most banks is collateral in the form of immovable property.
Most of the farmers are recent arrivals in town where immovable property commands a value that is accepted by banks for collateral purposes.
Most have been workers living in rented accommodation.
Massive housing schemes dotted across Zimbabwe’s urban landscape attest to the post-independence home-ownership drive by Government for black Zimbabweans.
For the majority, title deeds are still pending.
If available can you risk the family home?
But for many the call to do agriculture on the recently acquired land is impossible to ignore.
Then we become real ‘vana vevhu’.
If the majority of farmers cannot meet the conditions set by banks for accessing funds, the system must abandon the old model of immovable property-based agricultural loan funding.
We must think outside the box and devise new ways of doing business that recognise the reality that the majority of farmers do not belong to the propertied class.
Demand for collateral is all about reducing risk.
Let us identify the risk factors and take steps to address them.
Banks must be pro-active.
Thus banks and Government and farmers’ organisations and academics must sit down and hammer out a new dispensation as regards funding mechanisms for agriculture.
Major risks that the loan might not be serviced include but are not limited to the following.
Lack of expertise and skills to successfully carry out the farming enterprise reduces the chances of obtaining economic yields.
Short-term training and technical-advisory monitoring and back-up service on a regular basis are essential. Both farmers and their workers (managers, supervisors, fore-persons) need training.
This can and should be built into the total funding package.
It can be done.
Successful models for the training-technical advisory support approach are within l From page 13
Zimbabwe’s experience: tobacco and cotton are good examples.
More recently the Soyabean Promotion Task Force coordinated by the University of Zimbabwe, mobilized expertise from universities, AGRITEX, the private and NGO sectors to deliver a successful programme where farmers were trained, monitored, advised and technically supported throughout the growing and marketing season.
In this soyabean promotion model funding from banks or other contracting parties was tied to a programme of training and technical support.
Part of the loan to the farmer went to provide technical support.
In the 2005/06 cropping season, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe ring-fenced ASPEF funds for soyabean production and supported a Technical Support team that trained farmers and made regular follow-up visits to farms to ensure that the farmers were managing the crops properly.
Loan repayments exceeded 95 percent.
Farmers and their workers gained valuable knowledge and experience from the programme of training and technical-advisory services.
But for the sanctions, the programme had good prospects of being sustainable and loan repayments were assured.
At that same time, the Soyabean Technical Support Team was also negotiating with other banks and insurance companies on a technical-advisory support programme for farmers accessing loans from the banks.
These initiatives need to be revived.
Crop insurance is a major pillar in managing risk in financing agriculture.
At one time I advised a senior bank official that if he had US$100 million to invest, it was prudent to use part of the money to, as it were, ‘look after the rest’.
Gone are the days when a bank lends money and goes to sleep until the loan becomes due, hoping to recover the loan from the collateral in case of default.
Banks need to be proactive and to link with agricultural experts from universities and other specialist institutions.
The call to banks is: make use of locally available expertise to grow the size and quality of your portifolio: more farmer clients with requisite skills, experience and technical advisory back-up from experts, a win-win formula.
Banks and farmers must both make money.
We cannot afford to fail.

Zimbabwe’s experience: tobacco and cotton are good examples.