eBusiness Weekly
Hebert Zharare
Command Agriculture was conceived as an import substitution led industrialisation concept meant to economically empower Zimbabwean producers of cereal crops and in the process boosting capacity for locals and creating employment for thousands of people.
A successful Command Agriculture should result in huge savings in foreign currency as Government will have less pressure to import food. The savings can be channelled towards the importation of essential commodities such as medical consumables as well as sponsor national capital projects among other key issues.
Buoyed by the success of 2016/17 Command Agriculture, Government expanded the programme with a $300 million livestock, fisheries and wildlife special production programme (Command Livestock). Cabinet recently approved the programme.
This massive agricultural support is expected to boost land utilisation and influence the crop sector including cotton heavily sponsored by the Presidential Input Support Scheme.
The expanded Command Agriculture is expected to benefit livestock farmers from all sectors including institutions such as churches, prisons and police farms. The programme will also result in the establishment of Foot and Mouth Fence, dip tanks, watering points and livestock farming infrastructure such as paddocks and shelter for livestock.
Indeed, if all the facets that Government wants covered are adequately supported, Command Agriculture might emerge as one of the many solutions key to the revival of the country’s economy through backward and forward linkages.
The concept of Command Agriculture should never be misconstrued as command economics given that it is a meticulously planned concept whose foci among others is to stimulate mass food production and help hedge the economy against shortages.
By definition, a command economy is a system where government determines what goods and services should be produced and the price at which the goods are sold on the market. Under this economic system it’s the job of government planners to do that.
But Command Agriculture in Zimbabwe has become panacea to perennial food shortages that in the past had become huge drain to scarce foreign currency as central government imported hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food to avert hunger.
The Head of State, President Mugabe, is on record that Command Agriculture introduced by Government last season has achieved its intended purpose of stimulating economic growth, as it helped boost production of over two million tonnes of cereals, more than enough for human and livestock consumption.
The President revealed this while officially opening the 107th edition of the Harare Agricultural Show this year.
What the Government has simply done, in light of persistent droughts and the effects of “Western backed economic restrictions”, is to take Command of Agriculture as panacea to food challenges.
With Command Agriculture, maize production, which for years had plummeted owing to a variety of factors, made a major rebound to the level we are able to fully satisfy domestic food requirements and sustain ourselves in the event of a drought without having to import.
With the coming of Command Livestock, the objective is not only to produce enough for domestic consumption, but surplus for export, thus earning the country foreign currency and recapturing lost foreign market share.
Through backward linkages, there are a number of companies whose production levels rose tremendously at the back of Command Agriculture stimulated demand.
Fertiliser/Seed/Agro Chemical Industries
The demand for fertiliser following the introduction of Command Agriculture reached levels reminscent of the country’s Africa’s breadbasket status and manufacturers say the spike saw them raising capacity to meet national requirements.
Farmers, both commercial and communal, required close to half a million tonnes of fertilisers when the country was at its agricultural production zenith and that huge demand for the commodity has seen stability coming back into the sector, with more jobs being created.
Zimbabwe Fertiliser Manufacturers spokesperson Tapiwa Mashingaidze, recently admitted that with the steady support of foreign currency following the unveiling of the $600 million Nostro Stabilisation Facility from Afreximbank, fertiliser production was expected to steadily increase.
“When we were the breadbasket of Africa, the country was using about half a million tonnes of fertiliser. Buoyed by Command Agriculture, we produced about 400 000 tonnes of fertilisers the previous season (2016-17).
“There is high optimism that the demand will be over 400 000 or close to 500 000 tonnes this farming season, the figure produced when Zimbabwe was enjoying Africa’s breadbasket status,” said Mashingaidze.
Key fertiliser manufacturers in Zimbabwe are Windmill, Zimbabwe Fertiliser Company, Omnia and Sable Chemicals and reports say coming against the success of the Command Agriculture, many companies were setting up some fertiliser blending facilities in and outside Harare.
The success of last season Command Agriculture comes at the back of a strong seed production. Seed Co group chief executive Morgan Nzwere, recently said the Command Agriculture programme was a huge success in turning around maize production in the country. In the year to March following its participation in the Command Agriculture programme last year, Seed Co recorded a profit after tax increase of 41 percent to $20,7 million from $14,6 million of the prior year.
Although statistics from other seed companies could not be obtained, indications are that these companies including those in the agro chemical industry scored huge on the back of a successful Command Agriculture.
Hundreds of thousands of hectares were put under maize during the Government sponsored Command Agriculture. The effect is that thousands of jobs were created in the agro-based industries that support the agriculture sector over and above multitudes that work on farms.
If the Government successfully implement Command Livestock, over and above maize and other cereals, through forward linkages, so many companies will directly benefit through increased production.
