Africa-Press – Eswatini. With the high cost of farming inputs, farmers have been afforded an opportunity to increase their business revenues, as the buying price of produce has hiked by 31 per cent.
This was mentioned by Bhekizwe Maziya, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Agricultural Marketing Board (NamBoard). Maziya said the current minimum prices were last reviewed in 2014 and they believe that the increase would turnaround the farmers businesses and improve the viability to great extent. “This is more so because some of the commodity lines have received an increase of about 50 per cent. To put the impact of the increases into perspective using the current gross margins; for example, potatoes had a 50 per cent increase on the minimum price,” he said. Maziya added that this translates into an increase from E29, 654/ha (42 per cent gross margin) to E49, 654/ha (55 per cent gross margin). He said it was such healthy gross margins that can create wealth for our farmers.
Intervention
“As NAMBoard we have firm belief that this intervention will counter act the negative effects of the Russia-Ukraine war which has pushed a number of farmers out of business. We also believe that this move will resuscitate the interest of those farmers who had abandoned farming due to our low buying prices,” he said. The CEO mentioned that they were confident that these revised minimum prices would play a pivotal role in rejuvenating emaswati farmers to go back into vegetable farming as a livelihood and in turn contribute to the country’s economy. Maziya added that the Government of Eswatini Strategic Road map for economic recovery for 2018 – 2023, tasked the Ministry of Agriculture with driving the increase in horticultural crop production; where conventional vegetables would be increased from 8,000 metric tonnes (MT) to 20,000 MT by 2023 (2,500 MT/year) and baby vegetables from 2,000 MT to 4,000 MT by 2023 (400 MT/year).
In an effort to incentivise farmers to upsurge production, he said NamBoard have increased the minimum farmer off-take prices. “This is effective immediately and in line with the turnaround strategy which focuses on Farmer Development. This increase is expected to relieve the farmer’s burden from high input costs which has seen fertiliser prices increasing by more than 100 per cent, and improve productivity which had declined due to climate change,” he said. Maziya added that the capital cost of undercover structures, like tunnels and nets was significantly high thus the need for an improved return from the crop becomes one of the ideal solutions. He said minimum farmer off-take prices serve as an indicative guide for farmers to establish viability of their farming businesses.
Prices
By offering minimum prices, farmers were provided with a cushion that enabled them to stay viable even when prices were falling in the market. Minister of Agriculture Jabulani Mabuza said their focus was to deliberate and come up with strategies on how to improve resilience of the horticulture sub-sector in the midst of skyrocketing farm input costs with fertiliser taking the lead. Mabuza said over and above the excessive costs, these inputs have also become very difficult to source. The minister said in the planting season of 2021, their suppliers in the agro-industry faced challenges in getting fertiliser and by the time they had access, the price had escalated tremendously. “This predicament was firstly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic where factories around the world had to suspend operations in respect to health protocols,” he said.
The minister added that this resulted in very limited supplies while the demand was continuously increasing. Mabuza added that when the situation was normalizing, the agriculture industry was once again hit hard by the Russia-Ukraine war. “As we are all aware that the SADC region purchases most of its fertiliser from various sources outside the region. These sources were affected by the war and as such the price continued to increase to the current levels,” he said. The minister further mentioned that Eswatini needs to continue eating and Government looks up to agriculture to come up with solutions.
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