$20m winter wheat input scheme announced

At least 75 000 tonnes are expected to be produced up from the 41 000 tonnes that was produced from 14 100 hectares planted last season.
The inputs scheme that is made up of $15 million worth of inputs carried over from the past summer season and a fresh $5 million injection was announced by Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made and his ministry of Finance counterpart Tendai Biti at a joint press conference in Harare yesterday.

“We are proposing that we target 26 280 hectares of winter wheat and the requirement is $20 million and this targeted hectarage should give us a production of 75 000 metric tonnes,” Dr Made said.
Government, he said, was targeting farmers in the natural wheat growing regions that had enough irrigation facilities.

Dr Made added that the inputs would be distributed through the Grain Marketing Board.
“Inputs would be accessed at cost price under a credit arrangement. The money as financed would be at a concessionary interest rate of three percent,” he said.
Dr Made said the provision of inputs at cost price was to prevent unscrupulous people from accessing subsidised inputs and then resell at exorbitant price.

“We are trying to avoid arbitrage because there were some farmers who would pick up the inputs and then resell them.
“Each participating farmer would receive a voucher from CBZ and upon receipt of that voucher the farmer would go to the GMB where they delivered their wheat the previous season or the season before that (to collect their inputs),” he said.
He said this would enable GMB to keep proper records of beneficiaries. GMB, said Dr Made, was acting only as a distribution agent for the Government programme.

Dr Made said Government was moving away from provision of subsidised inputs to schemes that are market based due to financial constraints.
He also urged Zesa and Zinwa to work with farmers to ensure availability of power and water.
Minister Biti said the three-year agricultural financing programme announced in last year’s budget would be unveiled in the near future once Cabinet procedures have been completed.

“The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture are concluding work on the three-year agriculture financing plan.
“The Ministry of Agriculture does the agriculture plan and we do the financing. We hope to launch that once we have gone through the necessary Cabinet processes,” he said.

Minister Biti said the plan was meant to address medium to long term planning for agriculture to ensure that farmers plan on time.
He said some of the issues to be addressed include Government subsidies in agriculture and marketing of produce, among others.

Government was working on modalities to distribute grain to areas that were affected by drought this year, especially the southern regions.
A total of 500 000 hectares of land from the 1,7 million hectares planted this year was written off due to drought.
Grain from the 500 000 strategic grain reserve will be distributed.