When determination outweighs resources

A smallholder’s firsthand account of growing wheat this year

The following is an unfiltered, first-hand account from a small-scale farmer in rural Zimbabwe who dared to plant wheat when everyone said it couldn't be done.

 We often talk about food security, agricultural transformation, and supporting smallholder farmers in abstract terms, through statistics, policy papers, and development frameworks. But behind every data point is a human story. Behind every harvest is a battle fought with calloused hands, sleepless nights, and unwavering resolve.

This is one of those stories.

What you're about to read is written by a farmer, a young person who planted two acres of wheat with nothing but an ox, a plough, and a dream that refused to die even when cattle broke through fences, when equipment was stolen, when fire threatened to consume everything, and when the market showed that small-scale farmers "don't matter."

This account reveals uncomfortable truths about our agricultural systems: the infrastructure gaps, the market access challenges, the way volume requirements shut out smallholders, and the courage required just to survive a single growing season in rural Zimbabwe.

However, it reveals something policy papers cannot capture: the dignity of farming. The refusal to give up. The innovation born from necessity. And the question that should haunt us all: if this much can be achieved with so little, what becomes possible with the right support?

Read this with an open heart. This is not a plea for pity. It's an invitation to partnership, to see potential where others see only problems, and to recognise that food security isn't built by large-scale operations alone, it is also built by farmers like this.

Wheat season 2025: Feeding dreams in a field of struggles

By Tatendaishe C. Ukama

Late May 2025, in the depths of winter, I made a decision that many around me questioned. I planted wheat on my small plots, nearly 2 acres of land with saturated soils that can keep moisture all year round if they are protected well. I did this armed only with determination, the grit that grows where there is no silver spoon, and nothing more than hope, those small patches of land, and a dream.

The odds were not in my favour. No irrigation, just reliance on saturated soils that held moisture fed by the 2024-2025 rain season, moisture that would have to sustain my crop until harvest. No modern equipment, just my ox and my cow for draught power, my ox-drawn plough, calloused hands, and a heart that would not give up.

Neighbours laughed. They said small-scale wheat does not pay, but I planted anyway.

June 1st finally came, and all the community cattle were no longer being herded, they were now loitering around all day alone. In my community, cattle are left to feed on crop residues in winter across all the community fields. Now the war started. As we all know, as winter progresses in some parts of Zimbabwe, livestock feed becomes scarce and the dry season starts approaching to such an extent that communal cattle begin to starve for feed.

Cattle broke into my field multiple times, and I had to be both a farmer and security guard, sleeping with one eye open during the day and night. In my village, I was the one with the green field. Since some were against it, the war was not only against community cattle but against humans as well.

While my wheat crops were emerging, I continued doing winter land preparations on the other parts of my field where I had to conserve moisture for maize planting season. Before I was done, rotten souls trespassed in my field on 31 May and stole my ox-drawn plough. I eventually found it in the river under the water, where it stayed from the day it was stolen until 31st October - that's 5 months in the water. It was seen by one of the villagers when he was accompanying his cattle to drink water in the river, and he came and told me.

This affected me deeply. It caused me so much stress that I was not done with winter land preparation, and the time was going and moisture going away. I spent a couple of days under the blankets while my wheat crop and the whole field went unattended. At the same time, I was enrolled in the Southern Africa Confederation of Agricultural Unions Youth Leadership Incubation Programme, where I was learning and being trained by the Andreas Hermes Akademie.

The crop was blooming, lush green, and my helpers and nieces were helping to guard until one day, when the crop was towards its final days of maturity, someone started a fire nearest to my fields, actually on the parts where even fire guards could not protect the field. I was just 2 days from my graduation from that leadership incubation programme and I was resting when, from nowhere, my nieces came and said, "Uncle, there is fire at the field!" We ran with knapsack sprayers and found the other side already destroyed but managed to protect three sides.

Now the work was increased. The crop needed more security. The field was now a five-star dining hall for the community cattle. Fencing was now weak, and we were already in the dry season part of the year. Wheat became their target, but still I re-fenced, I protected, I persisted. Some nights I barely slept, watching stars and reading the wind like scriptures.

People around me had doubts. "Wheat is for big farms," they said. "You will never make it." But I was not just farming for income. I was farming for dignity, for food security, every day, everywhere, for my family, for those who are starving. For proof that we small-scale farmers still matter.

When the wheat finally matured, harvesting was not an easy task. Labour was not easy to find, and the timing had to be perfect. We cut, bundled using sickles, and carried to the whale-back where logs hit the crop and it became threshed, all manually. We watched every grain as if it were gold. I did not fill the silos, but I filled hearts. I shared some with those who helped from planting up to harvesting and stored some for sale.

Then came the toughest part: selling. I had already contacted institutions like Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange and other private buyers, but the reply was the same - they needed volumes, and I did not have volumes. Even the other farmers from the other villages I planned to bulk with, we could not get buyers because buyers needed volumes. It showed that we as small-scale farmers do not matter when it comes to the wheat value chain.

Some told me to take it to GMB, but I hesitated. Stories of delayed payments scared me, and even my fellow farmers who I now team with on selling were scared. They considered letting people in the community exchange with them, one bucket of wheat for two buckets of maize, then they could sell maize that way, which brings better payment for their harvested volumes of wheat. Some sent to GMB.

Myself, after months of sweat and sacrifice, I could not afford to risk losing everything to a system I did not trust, to the system I saw elderly farmers crying over, traveling unending travels following the board until they got nothing. So I sold locally - small buyers, reasonable prices, sometimes lower prices, but at least I could see the money. Even that came with challenges. Everyone wanted to negotiate me out of my worth.

What I lacked in volume, I gained in value, in the form of lessons, pride, and momentum.

Now, I look ahead. The experience has shown me that with finance, partnerships, and better tools, I can multiply this success. I have seen what is possible in areas like Marondera and Hwedza. We share similar soils, weather, and spirit. The only thing missing is investment.

So here I am, a small-scale farmer not asking for pity, but partnership. If you are looking for real stories of growth, resilience, and return, this wheat season was not just my beginning but the continuation.

Now I am working on maize.