Vusumuzi Dube
Francis Gakanje
The Government has announced plans to accelerate the movement of grain to depots from August to October 2024, while also implementing measures to stabilise prices and improve food availability.
This measure is in an effort to curb food shortages following the 2023 summer cropping season which was negatively affected by El Niño induced drought.
In line with this, the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) is currently managing 50 agro-shops, along with 12 hammer mills primarily located in rural and peri-urban areas.
This initiative is part of the Government’s efforts to stabilise prices and improve the availability, accessibility, and affordability of food products.
According to the 27th Post Cabinet press briefing, “The commodities sold at these Agro-shops include mealie-meal, sugar, rice, salt, flour, soap and cooking oil.
“Silo Foods’ complementary products include coffee, bran, dried kapenta, flour, grits, maize-meal, salt, silo samp and traditional mealie-meal.”
Cabinet received an update regarding the marketing and food security outlook for the 2023/2024 summer crops, extending to March 2025, as well as information on the 2024 winter cereals.
The food balance sheet for the country projected to March 2025, shows that 6,2 million people in the rural areas will need assistance.
“Taking into consideration the rural population requirements to March 2025 and the school feeding programme to April 2025, the maximum amount of grain required is 464 608,54 tonnes,” according to the Post Cabinet press briefing.
Current stocks in the strategic grain reserves which include wheat, maize, and traditional grains, total 264 246 tonnes, not accounting for the 32 314 tonnes imported by the Government so far.
Therefore, the shortfall of 200 362,54 tonnes will be addressed by utilising the surplus from the winter wheat harvest, which is projected to exceed the national annual requirement estimated at 240 000 tonnes, along with additional Government grain imports projected to be 300 000 tonnes.
According to the briefing, the private sector is anticipated to import the entire stock-feed requirements of 400 000 tonnes, as well as urban maize needs of up to 450 000 metric tonnes through March 2025.
“To date, 567 160 metric tonnes have been imported.
“Import permits worth 1,8 million metric tonnes of maize are active.”
Concerning the winter cereals plan, a total of 121 982 hectares of wheat, 2 100 hectares of maize, 3 732 hectares of potatoes, 6 449 hectares of barley and 3 000 hectares of seed wheat were cultivated.
“The wheat-based food security strategy is therefore sufficiently robust to meet our needs to March 2025,” according to the briefing.
Online Reporter