Zimra this week said machinery such as manure spreaders,
fertiliser distributors, hay balers, combine harvesters, machines for sorting
eggs, machines for preparing animal feed, tractors and poultry incubators would
be imported duty and VAT-free.
Stakeholders hailed the move as critical to transforming
the agricultural sector for economic growth and prosperity.
Zimra said importers were required to engage clearing
agents registered with the tax collector.
“The goods are treated as commercial importations.
Clearance is to be done through a bill of entry and a tax clearance certificate
is needed in order to be exempted from payment of presumptive tax. Failure to
produce such attracts a presumptive tax of 10 percent of the value for duty
purposes,” said Zimra.
The decision was greatly welcomed by farmers who said it
supported their efforts to grow the agricultural sector by easing the means of
production and lowering the burden on most farmers who desperately needed
modern equipment and technology.
Mrs Martha Macheke from Banket said it gave relief to those
who were importing machinery aimed at improving farming.
“Value addition as well as mechanisation are both critical
for us to be sustainable. This type of equipment industrialises and modernises
our agriculture through innovation development.
“Mechanisation, for example, leads to precision farming
which maximises efficiencies, lowers post-harvest losses, and increases the
profits that a farmer can make,” she said.
Another farmer from Raffingora, Mr Tendai Masocha said the
scrapping of duty on some equipment would enable them to access machinery at a
lower cost and boost the mechanisation programme.
“It has been expensive for farmers to buy machinery, but
without duty, it becomes affordable. This is a good move, especially on
machinery,’ he said.
Mr Albert Mumanikidzwa of Chinhoyi echoed similar
sentiments.
“Our challenge is that sometimes we do not have access to
foreign currency. Hopefully, we will have easy access to foreign currency so
that we can import machinery and boost production and alleviate poverty,” he
said.
The Government had been making huge efforts to revive the
agriculture sector by incentivising the importation of machinery.
On the other hand, the area yield index crop insurance,
which will be technically directed by Pula Advisors, is meant to protect
Pfumvudza farmers from heavy impact of climate change vagaries.
Beginning in the 2021/22 agricultural season, the Ministry will implement a pilot
exercise with financial support from development partner, Mercy Corps Zimbabwe.
Pula Advisors has been contracted by Mercy Corps’ AgriFin
Digital Farmer (ADF) to provide technical assistance for the design and
implementation of a comprehensive area yield index insurance on the inputs
distributed under the Pfumvudza initiative in Zimbabwe.
Mercy Corps’ AgriFin Digital Farmer (ADF) is a two-year, $5
million initiative that aims to support the expansion of high-impact,
digitally-enabled services to at least one million farmers and to expand the
services to a further five million smallholder farmers in partnership with
Gates and Bayer foundation.
The expansion efforts will be delivered by growing
ecosystems of diverse service providers and building farmer income,
productivity and resilience by 50 percent while reaching 40 percent women.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr John
Basera said the ministry established a team chaired by the Agricultural Finance
Corporation (AFC) Insurance to collectively model out piloting of the Area
Yield Index Crop Insurance.
“The task team, which comprises the ministry and relevant
stakeholders, is being technically advised by Pula Advisors and they have so
far green-ticked a number of key elements and are ready to roll the trial run
during this 2021/22 agricultural production season covering farmers under the
Pfumvudza/Intwasa Programme,” he said.
“The piloting of the area yield index crop insurance will
this season be undertaken in Rushinga and Mwenezi Districts covering about 30
000 smallholder farmers under the Pfumvudza programme for a sum insured of over
USD1 million.
“Recognizing the value likely to be created, the Ministry
commits itself to fully supporting the associated activities and has activated
its structures and institutions to ensure the piloting exercise is a success,”
he said.
Dr Basera commended FBC Insurance (Pvt) Ltd for coming on
board as the insurer for the pilot exercise.
Ministry chief director, strategic policy planning and
business development Mr Clemence Bwenje said the pilot exercise would be
exciting as it was premised on the objective of providing proof of concept,
showing the benefits, costs, relevance and possibility of scaling out the area
yield index crop Insurance next season.
“The evaluation to be produced by the task team will be
instrumental in informing policy to the farming community, stakeholders and
Government as it will highlight on the quality and scalability of the insurance
product,” he said.
Mr Bwenje emphasized that the overaching impact of rolling
out such insurance products was to sustainably and affordably protect
smallholder farmers from key agricultural risks through the use of insured
inputs, which in turn encouraged better farming practices, raised yields while
providing compensation (payouts) to support farmer resilience when losses
occurred. Herald
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