Interview by Nyasha Dube,
Can you tell us a bit about yourself: My name is Priviledge Makaza. I’m a farmer based in Zvishavane.
When did you venture into farming and how can you describe your journey: I started farming in September last year. We had cabbages, about 22 500 plants of Fabiola variety and managed to sell more than half of the produce before the heavy rains started. We were affected by too much rains. The market was also flooded at that time. We also had a small batch of tomatoes which also did so well except for the heavy rains that disturbed us a bit.
How does it feel like to be a young woman excelling in farming: Farming is something good. It feels good to know that you are contributing to the country’s food security. It’s also nice to contribute to employment creation as we currently have seven employees. As a journey that we recently started I can say we are moving in the right direction. Currently we have tomato plants, and a bit of water melons and butternuts. We are already harvesting tomatoes, about 50 to 60 crates a week.
How do you navigate through the male dominated industry and still make your mark: It’s a bit challenging for females in such a male dominated industry. We don’t get equal opportunities. We are happy though that people are starting to recognize that we are there, even horticulture associations like the one we have here in Midlands are starting to help and uplift us as women.
What challenges do you face as a female Farmer in terms acquiring land, capital, production, supply etc: It’s not easy to get capital as most of us don’t have collateral. Financial institutions require collateral so they can give you loans or any form of financial assistance so we are just trying to grow organically
Winter season is starting, how do you ensure that you still produce the best despite the change in season: This is our first winter and we look forward to producing good crops despite challenges that we hear of such as frost caused by low temperatures. We will work closely with extension workers and I am sure they will help us on how we can avoid any possible losses. They are always willing to advise us on how we can go about our activities in each season. After winter we will have the experience on what is needed and what we are supposed to do during the season
How did the COVID19 affect you as a farmer, and how did you adapt to the changes: COVID19 affected us to a larger extent because when we started there was a heavy lockdown which affected business, a lot of people’s incomes were affected as well. We were producing but the market was not consuming. A lot of people were working from home and some were not working at all so most resorted to backyard gardens and this affected us a lot. A lot of farm produce was in the market but the consumption rate was very low. This led to farmers lowering the price of the products yet the cost of production remained high. It was hard to continue farming when the previous crop hadn’t generated the expected income.
Where do you see yourself in the next five or so years in terms of farming: We are growing organically so in the next five years I hope I would have managed to drill more boreholes, equip them and be able to utilize the space I have. I’m looking forward to the value add side of the produce not just selling, for example if I am to sell a tomato I would also like to further process the product into something else like jam, not only primary production but having like a factory for secondary production.
Any last words to fellow women in farming:
Whatever you wish to do regardless of who else is doing it, just go for it. I’m not really a person who would want to differentiate people using gender or whatever category because as long as you get the resources you can do whatever you want to do. You may be a woman, but you are a man with a womb and thats an added advantage. So don’t just sit back and say because I’m a woman I can venture into mining or farming. It’s a little bit of hard work in the field but it’s something you can actually do and enjoy.
Priviledge Makaza, young woman in farming