Maravi

(HERALD) Market plan for farmers ideal

Market plan for farmers ideal
Herald Reporter

JUNE 30 was a black day for Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe when 14 farmers perished after their truck veered off a bridge and plunged into Nyaitenga River near Nyadire Mission in Mutoko. JUNE 30 was a black day for Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe when 14 farmers perished after their truck veered off a bridge and plunged into Nyaitenga River near Nyadire Mission in Mutoko. Among the deceased were five members from one family who have all since been laid to rest. We join the nation in mourning these departed lives.

What is sad, as was highlighted at the burial, is that these people died on their way to the market to fend for their families. These are the same farmers who have been supplying city residents with vegetables and tomatoes. Their death therefore is a big loss, not only to their families, but to the nation as a whole. To avoid such tragic accidents in future, vegetable farmers should have separate transport like buses to ferry them to Mbare Musika. Trucks should only carry produce.

It is a sad situation when you see farmers crammed together on top of vegetable crates in lorries. This should be avoided at all costs. Police should discourage such overloading by transporters who carry farmers from Mudzi, Mutoko and Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe. The overloading is a recipe for disaster. However, there is something fundamentally wrong with our economic planning if farmers have to travel all the way from Mutoko with their vegetables when trade could be done at a centralised place in Mutoko.

Wholesale vegetable and fruit buyers from Harare should be the ones trucking produce from Mutoko to the city with no farmers on board. In this modern day and age, we should not be seeing farmers precariously hanging on top of produce boxes loaded on lorries bringing tomatoes and other vegetables into town.

Several plans have to be drawn up to establish canning plants for processing the vast amount of tomatoes and mangoes produced in this area. Most of these plans are gathering dust somewhere. We also wonder what happened to another plan drawn up some years back to establish a market place near the city centre that would be a marketing and distribution point for agricultural produce from new farmers around Harare.

This marketplace was supposed to complement Mbare Musika, the capital’s hub of trade in agricultural produce for decades. We know Harare City Council are doing their best to improve Mbare Musika when they came up with the "Varimi" market place in Mbare. But this is overcrowded. The place looks unhygienic as produce is dumped on the ground hence the call for another marketplace. Stretches of land on the outskirts of the city are also ideal for other big markets, which should be properly set up with clean water supplies, public toilets and dumping places for stale fruits or vegetables.

Labels: FARMERS, LOCAL MARKETS, MBARE MUSIKA, ZIMABWE

posted by MrK @ 1:50 AM