Lovemore Chazingwa
CHAIRPERSON of the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show (ZAS) Small Grains section, Solomon Mudzamiri, has accused some farmers of cheating to qualify for national agricultural show competitions.
Mudzamiri threatened to plant whistleblower points across districts and promised to investigate cheating farmers.
He said some farmers sign the forms themselves to compete at national level, despite their products not qualifying even at district level.
This practice is killing the competition, he said, and suggested that placing suggestion boxes would help identify cheating farmers.
“We have some farmers who have been coming to the show for the past two decades. It boggles the mind whether they are really winning or it’s a matter of taking advantage of the system to qualify for the competition. They know where to get the forms and may connive with the chairperson there to acquire more forms and then give some of the forms to unworthy cronies. This is killing competition in the shows,” said Mudzamiri.
He also promised larger prizes in future to inspire farmers to develop the nation.
“Our competitions start from zonal, district provincial up to national level. We want our farmers to be inspired to develop the nation. Let’s look at the bigger picture, not the prize on the day.
“Let’s keep bringing worthy products to the shows. Prizes may have been reduced in the recent past due to a number of factors, but we are working on growing the scale of prizes.”