146 FARMERS CONTRACTED BY NAMBOARD

MBABANE - Farmers who have been contracted by the National Agricultural Marketing Board (NamBoard) are at a great advantage of having increased product sales.

Namboard has engaged and programmed 146 farmers according to their region, to grow vegetables for the market with a total area planted of 66 hectares (Ha) in the first quarter (January-June). This was mentioned by the Minister of Agriculture Jabulani Mabuza in the ministry’s first quarter performance report.

Growth

Mabuza said the objective was to achieve production growth of nine conventional vegetables from 3 650 metric tonnes (MT) in 2020/21 to 14 400 MT in 2024/25. “We ensured that farmers were advised to plant the correct crop and volume and segmentation of farmer by geological location and commercialisation on potential was carried,” he said. The minister also mentioned that 273 MT of vegetables was procured by Encabaneni Market from the 146 local farmers. When asked if the utilisations of local farmers had contributed to increased productivity, the minister said comparative to the 100 MT of vegetable productive targeted for the quarter, local production declined during this period. “Climate conditions and high input costs, especially fertiliser, have had a significant impact on performance,” he said.

The minister added that the overall wastage of production affected the supply to the market, which prompted them to train the 146 farmers on post-harvest handling and product quality specifications. He said they also negotiated delivery dates, arranged transport effectively, in-time collection of produce and correct storage facilities. The minister said the target was to reduce the wastage of fruits and conventional vegetables by 6 per cent and 15 per cent for baby vegetables. “The rejection rate for conventional vegetables was 4 per cent in the quarter. The baby vegetable rejection rate was 18 per cent and collection schedules are coordinated weekly and reviewed daily by the market and extension officers,” Mabuza said.

Rejection

The minister also mentioned that overall vegetable rejection had also declined for this quarter to 18 per cent; the previous quarter was at 24 per cent. Mabuza said this was mainly due to the training conducted to farmers to assists them with produce quality and post-harvest handling to reduce produce losses. NamBoard Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mandla Maziya afore urged farmers to focus more on scarce commodities. In an interview with the business desk last month, he said such commodities were easy to sell and could move at a fast rate, and they should check with NamBoard before production. “Farmers should focus on scarce commodities because those products are on demand in the market and can be sold quicker,” he said. Mabuza also mentioned that if farmers start producing the scarce products, they would make more profit due to the upscale in the movement of the produce in the market and they would decide the selling price.

Product

He said they could regulate the price if the product is in demand in the market. Siphephiso Mdlalose, one of the beneficiaries of the programme said being utilised by Namboard on contract basis had increase confidence in doing business with the government’s parastatal. He said one of the challenges farmers had with Namboard was the unregulated price of produce which was low, forcing them to rely on black market. Mdlalose said they now negotiate prices with Namboard based on the market and demand of the produce. “We were losing confidence in doing business with the entity because of their pricing which has now since changed because of the negotiation process,” he said. The farmer added that they hoped government could review the price of produce especially scarce commodities.

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