The ManicaPost
Luthando Mapepa
Chipinge Correspondent
GOGO Siwela (71), born Munosiyani Mzila of Ndiyadzo Village in Chipinge, a banana and pineapple farmer of repute, is a worried person.
Each and every passing day she watches her crops ripening in the field, but very few takers of her produce are visiting the area due to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions and the bad state of the roads caused by incessant rains pounding the area day and night.
Ndiyadzo Village is located close to Rusitu, Chipita and Nyahode rivers confluence where hundreds of villagers lost their lives when tropical Cyclone Idai hit the area in March 2019.
For Gogo Siwela, growing pineapples and bananas is her only source of income for her six-member family.
She is also a widow and breadwinner, a role she has been performing for the past 15 years following the death of her husband.
This year, the heavens had smiled at her following the good rains that guaranteed a bumper harvest, but her hopes of walking with a spring in her step after selling her crop are fast being replaced with agony and despair.
Her produce has reached ripening stage, with some going to waste.
Over the years, middlemen or buyers popularly known as makoronyera would come to their rescue as they would flock the area in their numbers to buy the farm produce, but this year it is a totally different ball game due to the national lockdown.
With very few buyers coming to their area, Gogo Siwela and her grandchildren are now being forced to trudge to the nearby Kopa Business Centre to sell their produce for a song.
At Kopa Business Centre, it is a dog eat dog situation as almost the whole village converge there to trade their produce to a few travellers who would have managed to navigate their way past debris from landslides covering the length and breadth of most roads.
Among their buyers are brewers of local potent illicit brews who usually go for almost rotten fruits.
“This year was one of the best seasons for us. We have the best crop, but there are no buyers. We are fast losing hope of getting a return for our investment. No one is coming to buy them and we are now selling them to anyone who visits our area at give away prices. It is better to get a few dollars than watching the produce going to waste.
“During this time of the year, this area will be full of buyers from all over the country jostling to buy our fruits especially pineapples. This is the only time where we raise money for our children’s school fees and buy other household utilities, but I doubt whether we will be able to do so this year,” bemoaned Gogo Siwela.
Gogo Siwela’s sad story is one of the heart rending stories being faced by fruits farmers in the two districts of Chipinge and Chimanimani.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic which has hard hit the whole world, fruits farmers are no exception despite calls for health eating.
Community leader, Headman Ndiyadzo decried the state of affairs for farmers in his area.
He said fruits farmers have no access to exemption letters to travel and sell their produce to markets in Chipinge and Mutare.
“Although the road that link us to the main road was resurfaced by the Government, the Covid-19 lockdown has worsened our plight. Taking our produce to the market is now a nightmare. Buyers are not forthcoming and we do not have exemption letters to give us passage through all the police roadblocks on our way to the markets.
“Our produce is going to waste and we are now incurring huge losses. We should have access to exemption letters so that we can take the produce to markets across the country,” he said.
A check by The Manica Post this week revealed that some farmers are now relying on delivery trucks which deliver goods to supermarkets and pleaded with them to ferry their fruits to the main road en-route to big cities.
However, it is not always a stroll in the park for the farmers as they can spend up to seven days without getting big trucks to load the produce. Some farmers end up selling their produce at bus stops to avoid losses from the perishables.
In an interview, Chipinge Business Initiative chairperson, Mr James Gabaza, called for value addition of all farm produce in the two districts.
“Local farmers produce quality fruits which are on demand countrywide and beyond our borders, but they remain poor because middlemen are ripping them off through paying them peanuts.
“Farmers should come together and form syndicates so that they sell their produce as a single entity. This will see them cutting costs as everything will be shared.
“However, maximum profits for our farmers can only be realised when there is a complete value addition chain. Gone are the days of travelling far and wide looking for markets. Small factories can be established in Chimanimani and Chipinge to process the fruits. We need village industries as they will also create employment for our children and at the same time ensuring a readily available market for the farmers’ produce.
We hope local authorities will channel part of the devolution funds to create village industries.
We cannot continue wallowing in poverty when we are blessed with good and rich soils which produce the much sought after organic produce,” said Mr Gabaza.
