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Sithandazile Moyo Business Reporter—
THE Grain Marketing Board (GMB) has started receiving maize from farmers as the parastatal targets buying 250,000 tonnes of the cereal for the strategic grain reserve during the 2014/15 grain marketing season. In the last marketing season, only 33, 273 tonnes were delivered to GMB depots.
In a statement, GMB chairperson Charles Chikaura said the target was based on the results of the current crop forecast for the 2014 season.
He said the maize purchases would require $100 million.
“Government has made a provision for this amount in the budget. However, cognisant of the tight fiscal position and the imperative to pay farmers timeously, the GMB has also approached the Agricultural Marketing Authority to raise sufficient resources in the market through bills,” Chikaura said.
In the build up to the just ended cropping season, government, under the Presidential Input Scheme, mobilised farming inputs targeting 1,6 million people countrywide.
The input package for each household comprised 10kg of seed maize, 50kg compound D, 50kg ammonium nitrate and 50kg lime.
According to the government’s five year economic blue print – the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation – the agricultural sector, being the backbone of the economy underpinning economic growth, food security and poverty eradication, continues to experience severe systemic challenges within its entire value chain ranging from lack of agricultural financing to a shortage of affordable inputs.
The World Bank in its April economic briefing on Zimbabwe, said after a weak 2012-2013 season, agriculture is expected to rebound by 7.3 percent in 2014, largely supported by recovery in maize (to 1.2 million tonnes).
The first crop assessment estimates that 1.4 million hectares of maize were planted (18 percent increase from the previous season).
GMB general manager Albert Mandizha told Business Chronicle that GMB started receiving grain in April.
“The first delivery of maize was recorded in Lusulu in Binga where Ozias Sibanda delivered three tonnes of grain,” he said.
Mandizha said GMB depots were under clear instructions not to accept maize that did not meet the required standards in terms of quality and moisture content to ensure longer storability and avoid post-harvest losses.
“GMB will also be buying small grains that include sorghum, millet and rapoko at $390 per tonne.
“The small grains will go towards building the strategic reserve of seed stocks to improve production of small grains in the next cropping season,” he said.
Mandizha said GMB would not be accepting maize deliveries from traders but only from local farmers adding that the entity’s members of staff were not allowed to buy grains from farmers for resale to the GMB.
“Disciplinary action will be taken against such members of staff as unprofessional behaviour and any malpractices are not to be tolerated by the organisation,” he said.
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