Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) has listed import duty and Value Added Tax (VAT)-free agricultural equipment while the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development has introduced a crop insurance product for Pfumvudza/Intwasa beneficiaries.
The move is part of the government’s bid to boost agricultural production. 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. 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.
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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.
Reviving agri sector
“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.
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.
