happiness Chikwanha
Edgar Vhera
Agriculture Specialist Writer
FARMERS producing mangetout and sugar snap peas for European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) export markets have 12 days to complete planting if they are to get optimum foreign currency earnings.
Kuminda chief executive officer, Mr Clarence Mwale revealed this yesterday saying participating farmers must plant their crop within this window period.
“The last day of planting mangetout and sugar snap peas for the EU and UK market is June 17. We call on all farmers to have planted by this date for a guaranteed market,” Mr Mwale said in a recent X (formerly Twitter) post.
Kuminda is a multinational company founded in Zimbabwe. Its main goal is to empower African farmers by providing them with access to international markets.
The company provides agronomic, production and compliance services in addition to market scouting and logistics to the final consumer.
“I think this year we will have a better pea season. Guatemala won’t be producing as much, Kenya is out (with the recent flooding), Egypt has already finished. Buyers, who have been depending on Kenya have no other source after the floods,” he said.
The natural taste and better quality of the country’s products will aid the growing demand for them.
He added that local peas were being grown mostly on fallow land with less pesticide contamination, hence the low maximum residue limit (MRL).
MRL is the highest level of a pesticide residue that is legally tolerated in or on food or feed when pesticides are applied correctly in accordance with good agricultural practice (GAP).
Meanwhile, a former peas grower, exporter and Horticultural Development Council (HDC) chairman, Mr Stanley Heri believes otherwise, arguing that the window period was over, as planting must end in May, latest.
“The country’s pea exporters should capitalise on the niche period when prices are high on the international market, as a result of low supply from main supplier Guatemala.
“Any peas planted in June will reach the EU market when demand is low due to school closures with many consumers on holiday,” he said.
Another horticulture producer and exporter, Lingflora concurred saying the cut off time for planting was mid-May and by end of August and first week of September all pea deliveries would have ended.
Lingflora operations director, Mr Tatenda Karimazondo said they were now busy harvesting and exporting their peas to catch high prices following the conclusion of the Egyptian and Guatemalan export season for the product.
“We finished planting all our 50 hectares last month and we are expecting 700 tonnes. It takes eight weeks for peas to mature and four to five weeks of picking,” he added.
Zimbabwe exports peas via both air and sea freight depending on the period.
Mr Karimazondo said: “We are currently using air freight to catch high prices but later this month we will switch to sea freight, which takes over three weeks to reach the market although prices tend to take a dip due to entry of more products from Peru.
Statistics from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) show that there was a slight three percent rise in fresh peas export earnings from US$2 725 152 in 2022 to US$2 803 400 last year.
In volume terms it slightly declined three percent from 2 426 065 kilogrammes in 2022 to 2 359 573 in 2023.
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