Of the traditional field crops, cotton and groundnuts are the most labour intensive, but still demand considerably less labour than flue-cured tobacco. From the social perspective, an important advantage of these crops is that cotton and groundnuts both require casual workers to help at harvest time and so provide employment opportunities for workers beyond each farmer’s permanent labour force. Maize, soybeans and wheat, on the other hand, use considerably less labour with few jobs created for casual workers. For LSC farmers, this can be an important advantage since these crops avoid the trouble and expense of hiring outside workers. A comparison of total variable costs for tobacco and other traditional smallholder crops grown in Natural Region II is given in Table 10. As with the LSC sector, these data show that traditional field crops all cost much less to grow than tobacco on a per hectare basis. This is especially important to understanding the decisions smallholders make since only very few farmers have reliable access to seasonal credit or other sources of crop finance. Of the traditional field crops, cotton is generally the most expensive, but special input schemes help alleviate this pressure. It should also be kept in mind that smallholder farmers mostly cultivate less than a full hectare of most crops so that the actual costs and returns from each enterprise will less than the per hectare results shown below. At the national level,mobile vertical grow racks most maize in Zimbabwe is grown by communal and resettlement farmers for whom this is the principal food crop.

Although other food crops are of greater importance outside Natural Region II, virtually every smallholder farmer cultivates maize to some extent or another to meet at least some of their subsistence needs. Compared with LSC farmers, sales to the GMB are more common and most smallholder farmers also plan to earn at least some cash income from maize each year. Smallholder farmers normally account for 55% to 70% of total sales to the GMB. The financial indicators for smallholder maize are summarised in Table 15 for farmers who sell all of their output for cash. Management practices vary considerably in the smallholder sector and the low input level for communal and resettlement farmers is based on growers using recycled seed without fertiliser; all other production levels are for hybrid maize with more intensive use of fertiliser at each successive management level. Compared with LSC farmers, the results for smallholder maize are generally more favourable. Although crop profits are still very low compared with other smallholder enterprises, maize does at least return a positive gross and net profit at each management level. It should be noted, however, that for all models for hybrid maize the costs of production are greater than the estimated gross returns indicating that farmers must have some other source of cash income to sustain this activity. To the extent that tobacco is often grown in rotation with maize on smallholder farms, it is clearly important to include a similar high-value crop as part of the strategy for household and even national food security. Even for smallholders not growing tobacco, the crop can still help finance improved maize production through remittance income sent by family members or from casual employment on LSC tobacco farms. The imputed returns for small holder maize by marketing arrangement are summarised below.

In interpreting these data, it should be kept in mind that the optimal technological choice and marketing arrangement depends on each household’s own consumption requirements and availability of storage space. In these terms, production at the high and medium levels is much more profitable compared with low-input maize because of the additional grain harvested. Nevertheless, because the estimated profits are positive in all cases, the data show that some cash sales can still be justified at each production level to raise money for minor household expenses. Cotton is Zimbabwe’s third most valuable agricultural export after tobacco and horticulture and is a key economic sector in terms of contribution to GDP, employment and export earnings. More than 200 000 smallholder households derive their livelihood directly from cotton, which is well suited to production in more marginal agricultural areas. About 80% of the lint produced each year is exported with the balance used by a small but vibrant textile industry with numerous downstream jobs. Cottonseed is used for crushing and supplies a large portion of Zimbabwe’s vegetable oil and cake used in stock feed. Over the past five years, communal and resettlement farmers have accounted for 80% to 90% of total plantings by area and typically produce 60% to 80% of Zimbabwe’s total crop. The total annual export value for cotton normally ranges from USD 61 to 75 million depending on price and yield. The cotton industry was deregulated in 1995 with the commercialisation of the Cotton Marketing Board.Two other companies have since entered the industry and the resulting competition has benefited all cotton growers in the form of better market related prices, improved efficiencies and better service. Each buyer sets their own prices based on world market conditions and distinguish between four grades of smallholder cotton to encourage good crop management and post-harvest handling.

This system also contributes to Zimbabwe’s very good reputation as a supplier of top quality lint. Compared with most neighbouring countries, Zimbabwe enjoys a very good ginning out turn of about 41% lint per unit of seed cotton. This is mostly because of a highly developed seed breeding and multiplication system that ensures all farmers start with good gene stock. Because lint is the most valuable product of cotton, this allows more favourable prices to be paid to farmers than in countries with a lower GOT. Compared with Zambia for example , producer prices in Zimbabwe are normally 20% higher in USD terms depending on world market conditions. About 98% of all cotton in Zimbabwe is handpicked which further contributes to the good quality and high prices on offer. Per hectare yields are highly dependent on adequate pest control and, like tobacco,vertical garden growing cotton makes intensive use of agro-chemicals and other purchased inputs. To help smallholder farmers afford these costs, each ginning company operates their own input scheme. Group lending, for example, has been used to good effect by The Cotton Company, which only extends credit through associations. Under this scheme, each association member must sign an agreement stating that the entire group will be ineligible for credit next year if just one individual defaults by selling outside the system. One of the new private companies, on the other hand, operates a voucher system in which farmers can choose to accept part of their payment in the form of a voucher exchangeable for inputs later in the year. Although this means that farmers are effectively put in the position of extending credit to the scheme operator, most growers have welcomed this system, both as a form of protection from inflation and as a way to avoid the problem of saving cash until later in the year to buy inputs. Compared with other traditional field crops, the results for LSC cotton are reasonably attractive. Of the traditional field crops, only wheat offers a potential for greater farmer profits. Although far less profitable than tobacco and other high-value crops, cotton is normally grown on large plots of 100 hectares or more and so can represent an important source of income when high yields are achieved. This is not necessarily true with low-input management and irrigated production is more profitable in every case despite higher production costs. As a handpicked crop, cotton is very labour intensive and requires an estimated 100 to 233 days of casual labour per hectare . This is slightly more than the estimated casual labour requirements for LSC tobacco.Compared with all other smallholder crops, the results for cotton are quite favourable and help explain why so many growers give high priority to this enterprise. Although somewhat expensive compared with other alternatives, the input schemes described above help cover many of these costs and cotton is not normally difficult to afford. On the other hand, input support packages do not always cover the costs of producing at the more intensive management levels and farmer profits are considerably greater with high and medium input use than with more typical low input management . To the extent that communal farmers are able to afford more intensive production as a result of remittances sent by family members working on LSC tobacco farms, a shift away from tobacco could impact the cotton sector.

The sensitivity indicators for cotton are among the best compared with all other smallholder crops and show that the good results for this enterprise are extremely robust. Cotton demands a large amount of labour, especially for good weed control and picking. Spraying is normally done with handheld knapsack sprayers. Smallholder farmers produce roughly 95% of Zimbabwe’s total groundnut crop, mainly on very small plots for home consumption. Groundnuts are one of the most important sources of protein in rural diets and are grown by nearly every smallholder farmer to some extent or another. Recently, total plantings by communal and resettlement farmers has varied between 100 000 to 140 000 hectares per annum. Only about 5% of these groundnuts are grown as a cash crop however and total deliveries to the GMB have been less 3 000 metric tons per year for the past three years. Smallholder groundnuts are generally not suitable for export due to problems with mixed and outdated varieties, and also because of problems with aflatoxin. To the extent that groundnuts can be promoted as a cash enterprise, the most urgent challenge is to develop a seed multiplication program to produce the varieties demanded by international buyers. Most LSC farmers grow long-season flamingo nuts as a dryland crop; only about one third of total production is irrigated. These pink skin confectionery nuts have many the characteristics sought by international buyers, but are not normally grown in sufficient quantities to attract European interest. Most trade therefore is with South Africa and Australia and any LSC groundnuts not exported are normally used domestically for the manufacture of peanut butter. An important advantage of groundnuts is that the crop performs well on the same sandy soils suited to tobacco and so makes an ideal rotation crop. Nevertheless, groundnuts are normally grown on small plots on most farms with only about one third of the area used for tobacco given to this activity. The total area planted to LSC groundnuts had fallen to just 1 000 hectares in recent years compared with more than 8 000 hectares annually in the early 1990s. The financial indicators LSC groundnuts are summarised in Table 19. Except with low input management, these data show that irrigated groundnuts are roughly twice as profitable compared with dryland management at each corresponding production level. Compared with other traditional LSC crops, on the other hand, cotton and wheat both offer higher producer profits. Although only about one third of total production is under irrigation, when high yields are achieved, the estimated gross profits from groundnuts equal about 22% of the pre -harvest cash costs for medium input dryland tobacco. In other words, the income from every 4.6 hectares of irrigated groundnuts, has the potential to finance roughly one hectare of flue-cured tobacco. In terms of labour requirements, groundnuts typically use some casual workers to help with harvesting and are more labour intensive compared with all other traditional field crops except cotton. The quantitative results for smallholder groundnuts are summarised in Table 20. These data show that groundnuts are relatively inexpensive for smallholders to grow, but that farmer profits are also very low. Because most households produce groundnuts mainly as a food crop, however, the imputed food security value should also be taken into account and returns would be greater than shown if the measured against the cost of buying groundnuts throughout the year. On the other hand, most farmers only cultivate a very small area of groundnuts and rarely grow the crop over an entire hectare.Importantly, these data show that groundnuts can be an attractive cash enterprise with the potential to generate similar net earnings to cotton. In order for this potential to be realised, however, farmers must have access to improved seed so as to produce a uniform crop with the characteristics international buyers demand.