The Sunday News
Farming issues with Mhlupheki Dube
TODAY we want to look at the role of the one of the slowly fading players in the farming community.
I refer here to the farmers’ unions. These are basically voluntary membership organisations whose broader and primary role is to intercede between farmers and the various players in the farming community.
These are organisations which consolidate farmers’ voices and lobby Government for an enactment or repeal of laws that constrain farming operations. They will also lobby for relaxation or tightening of regulations that govern various operations within the agriculture value chains.
Farmers’ unions are membership driven which means farmers have to pay subscription fees to sustain operations of the unions and in turn the union has to design products that benefit their members. There are various membership driven livestock organisations which the agriculture sector such as the various breed societies, the Zimbabwe herd book itself and a number of associations within the livestock value chain.
Most of these membership associations seem to attract and maintain membership which facilitate their smooth operation, except for the farmers unions, why?
I will hazard my external view to this internal matter with the risk of attracting the wrath of the leadership of these unions. My view is that most farmers unions allowed themselves to deteriorate in services they provide to their members until they got caught in the old age chicken and egg conundrum which they are now unable to break.
They stopped providing reasonable services and innovative products to their paying members until the members decided they were not going to continue paying membership fees to an organisation which does not benefit them in anyway. Lack of membership fees crippled the farmers’ unions in two ways, they lost members which technically means their constituency shrunk.
Secondly, the cashflows of the organisations were affected, add economic melt down over the years, and then you have virtually broke farmers’ unions purporting to be running affairs for the farmers. Farmer’s unions need to unlock themselves from this entrapment so that they can be able once more to mobilise and rally farmers to join and subscribe to the unions.
Farmers will only join and pay subscription fees when farmers’ unions demonstrate that there is tangible benefit for the farmer to be part of the crusade. Now the context has changed over the years largely due to advancement of technology and this means farmers’ unions have to dig deeper into their innovation abilities so that they can design products that will attract farmers to join.
There are smart phones now, which means most farmers can easily access information which they would ordinarily get from their unions. This could be technical information around production or market intelligence information on a particular produce. So, disseminating information on market prices and markets can not fly anymore because farmers can get that online.
Farmers’ unions need to redefine their competitive edge so that they can be able to lure farmers back into their association. They simply have to innovate or perish! If breed societies of the various livestock breeds are able to rally their members to pay membership fees, if the Zimbabwe herd book can manage to get stud breeders paying around US$10 per every registered pedigree animal, what product are they rendering to their members that make the members find it worthy while to join and subscribe.
Farmers’ unions in my view have to move beyond the traditional roles which used to define their union and find a new niche which will define them. I would be perfectly happy to join a livestock union which can negotiate a good livestock loan package for me from a bank, a union which can demonstrate that its fighting from the front to ensure that I get a fair price when I sell my animals. I would join a union which will engage stockfeed manufacturers to loan me stockfeed during a drought year so that I save my herd but still pay for the feed following an agreed payment plan.
As a farmer in proximity to wildlife zones and hence encountering constant livestock losses to predation, I would gladly join a livestock association which fights for me to be compensated for my losses. My point is farmers’ unions have to make themselves relevant, go to areas for the farmer and this can only happen if the unions can come up with innovative products that help farmers, otherwise they will soon be extinct.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his personal capacity. Feedback [email protected]/cell 0772851275
