Sharon Chigeza
MUTARE-The high cost of inputs coupled with climatic changes have adversely affected coffee growing in the Eastern Highlands with farmers cutting down on production this season.
The introduction of a market based production approach, facilitated and capacitated by Technoserve in partnership with Nespresso, had resulted in an increased appetite for coffee production in Zimbabwe over the past few years. Market guarantee, technical support, premium prices and value addition are some of the positive attributes that had attracted farmers back to the coffee bean farm lately.
The country currently exports 65 percent of coffee produced with the remaining 35 percent sold locally.
However, this upward trajectory may be short lived as the farmers are no longer happy with the production costs and other expenses they have to meet before the coffee bean reaches the market.
For coffee, each station (comprising two plants) requires double the initial amount of fertiliser once it reaches harvesting to achieve better yields. Each station requires about 400 grammes to 1 kilogramme of fertiliser, applied twice a season.
Zimbabwe Coffee Mill, manager, Johane Jori said small scale coffee farmers delivering to the mill, produced 39 tonnes in 2021 up from 25 tonnes the previous year recording a steady increase in production.
Currently the region has a total of 700 small scale coffee farmers, with 256 of them delivering to the coffee mill. The large scale producers are Crake Valley Farm in Burma Valley, Tanganda Tea Company in Chipinge and Farfell Estates in Chipinge Mt Selinda area.
However he highlighted the prolonged gestation period of up to four years as the reason why farmers in the region are having second thoughts in venturing into the crop.
“Coffee has a long gestation period of up to four years before starting to produce but at the same time drawing costs. That’s the reason many are afraid to take it up without well-structured funding,” said Jori.
He implored Government to take a leading role in helping finance coffee production by availing funding for the farmers.
“We also feel the Government should take a leading position with regards to securing funds for coffee production. National production used to reach 15,000mt per annum before the turn of the 20th century as compared to around 600 mt produced now,” he added.
With regards to value addition and beneficiation, Jori noted that the long gestation period resulted in inconsistent production thus stalling appetite in coffee value chains locally.
“As for small scale doing value addition without consistent production will be a challenge as this will prolong waiting period to get sales proceeds. Large scale farmers are the ones expressing interest in value addition for some of their coffees and their brands are now there on the shelves across the country,” he said.
In addition to the cost of production, the farmers have also highlighted limited or no access to funding from banks due to a myriad of challenges, chief among them collateral.
“It takes three to four years for a coffee farmer to start harvesting and realising profits and because of this, we cannot access funding from financial institutions to capitalise our businesses. The prolonged period of return has made a number of institutions shun investing in coffee farmers.
“We have to fund ourselves from the beginning which is difficult for many households who may want to venture into the business. But once you start harvesting and making profits it becomes easier to manage and also expand,” said Talksure Bode, chairperson, Coffee Commodities Association of Zimbabwe.
Bode said if the growers were given full financial support to meet early costs, the region has the capacity to produce up to 15 000 tonnes of coffee bean annually.
“All things being fair for the producers, Zimbabwe has the potential of becoming the largest coffee producer once again. As it stands markets for Zimbabwean coffee are readily available with the capacity of taking up to 15000 tonnes per harvest,” said Bode.
As a way of helping new famers, Bode implored government to put in place coffee farming schemes that would capacitate growers to undertake production during the three to four year coffee maturing period.
Manicaland’s provincial Agritex horticulture expert, Douglas Nzarayebani said lack of access to finance the purchasing of critical inputs in coffee production was crippling the sector and this was further compounded by climatic shocks as a result of shifting weather patterns conducive for a healthy crop.
“Producers lack access to finances to purchase critical inputs leading to poor soil nutrition and low quality and productivity of coffee. Further compounding these challenges is the change in climatic conditions.
