(HERALD) Mechanisation key to productivity

Mechanisation key to productivity
By George Chisoko

Government’s empowerment programme through farm mechanisation should revitalise the agricultural sector and return the country to its status as a net food exporter. The mechanisation programme, bank-rolled by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, has benefited farmers in both the commercial and communal sectors. Mechanisation has taken land reform to a higher level, empowering the hitherto resource-poor farmers with machinery to create a vibrant agricultural industry.

Let us at this juncture define what farm mechanisation is, as it is more often associated with tractorisation, yet it is a broad area that involves far much more than just tractors. According to Agripedia, farm mechanisation involves the use of machines to till the soil and to harvest crops, resulting in a dramatic increase in farm yields and a reduction in the farmers’ workload.

Human and animal power — where farmers performed planting and harvesting by hand — is substituted by machine power to revive the agricultural sector. Farmers have always been fully aware of the immense benefits accruing from the use of machinery in agricultural production but the huge cost involved has been the major drawback to acquiring equipment.

The Government, through the RBZ, which took into cognisance the high cost of acquiring machinery on individual farmer basis, took it upon itself to revolutionalise farming by providing the machinery to farmers. With mechanisation, farmers can increase productivity through intensification, increase farm household welfare and create employment opportunities.

While land reform had scored immense success in empowering thousands of Zimbabweans with the resource, the missing link in the production matrix has been mechanisation.

A crop inputs programme run by the Grain Marketing Board in which farmers accessed seed, chemicals and fertilizer cheaply was in place but machinery was absent to enable farmers to put their land to full production.

Indeed the Farm Mechanisation Programme, which is ongoing, has not been segregatory but has cut across all the sectors of the agricultural industry, benefiting many farmers depending on the size of their farms.

While commercial farmers have accessed big machinery like tractors, combines, disc harrows and ploughs, among an assortment of equipment, communal farmers have received ox-drawn ploughs, cultivators, scotchcarts, among others.

It must also be borne in mind that most beneficiaries of the RBZ’s mechanisation programme have not paid for the machinery and thus are mere custodians of the equipment, which they should use for the benefit of others. Even in instances where the equipment has been paid for, the beneficiaries still have an obligation to till land for others.

Once this is observed and assuming the country receives normal rainfall and that all crop inputs are there in abundance, there is indeed no reason why Zimbabweans — who are inherently farmers — can fail to produce enough food for domestic consumption and export.

Farmers can only underestimate the importance of equipment on a farm at their own peril. Rain-fed agriculture has become a liability to most farmers in recent years because of erratic rainfall. Thus it has become imperatively important for farmers to have irrigation to help with crop germination.

This does not mean every farmer needs big irrigation infrastructure like centre pivots or bigger engines but the small-scale farmers can get drip irrigation equipment for meaningful production. Irrigation ensures maximum production of food throughout the year.

However, farmers should be able to maintain the equipment. Thus education on use and maintenance of the important assets should be passed on to farmers.

It becomes imperative for the users of the equipment to receive training on maintenance to ensure longevity and efficient use of machinery.

The mechanisation programme did not only usher a new era in Zimbabwe but it also introduced the latest technology in agricultural equipment used in modernised agricultural systems and improved agricultural production among the once resource poor farmer.

These include specialised seed drills for planting wheat and rice. With this type of equipment, the RBZ has revolutionised farming and Zimbabwe stands on the threshold once again of being able to compete with the world’s biggest food producers.