Abbie WestfallZimbabwe should be self-sufficient in grains.
It is now producing surpluses of wheat and in normal rainfall years a surplus of maize and traditional grains. But we are still importing durum wheat, almost US$50 million worth in the first six months, and we are importing ever larger quantities of rice.
The varied diet is a good idea but it should be possible to have the variety without large imports, and to perhaps be exporting processed food.
Durum wheat appears to be an obvious addition. This is a separate species from the common wheat that makes up almost 95 percent of global wheat harvests. All wheat comes from natural and unplanned crosses of northern middle-eastern grasses.
Common wheat started with a cross of two grasses, and then that cross was combined with a third grass, to make a 42 chromosome hexaploid plant with six sets of chromosomes, one of the largest and most complex genetic make-ups.
Even then in the domestication period, the early Neolithic farmers were selecting for larger grains, and for ears that remained intact on harvest and needed to be threshed manually, so common wheat became a plant that could not spread naturally, it needs humans to plant it. This huge genetic inheritance makes wheat very difficult to genetically modify.
Durum wheat came through a different route, a combination of two grasses to make the emmer wheat, a quadraploid 28 chromosome species, and then a lot of farmer selection of the emmer strains to find one that could be practically farmed, harvested and threshed. The wild strains have been identified, but it is the domestic strain that farmers grow, mostly in the Middle East and in other warm areas such as Italy.
It is not so good as common wheat for bread and cakes, the main use of wheat, and that partly explains the unleavened bread more common in west Asia, but it is the main ingredient of pastas, at least those stored and sold as dry pasta, and that largely explains why Italians, for example, developed that sort of processing industry.
It is normally described as a hard wheat, rather than the soft common wheat, but that is a technical term. Durum is not that good for bread, although it can be mixed into ordinary flour in small proportions and often is when the really harder common wheats are not available, but on the other hand common wheat is not so good for pastas, at least when they are dried after being made.
Zimbabwe, growing wheat in the tropics even at altitude and even in winter, has had to use the softer spring wheats, which is why some bread bakers like a small addition of durum.
And the growing pasta market needs harder wheats, although there has been mixing of common wheats as these move into surplus, but there are still those imports.
When Rhodesia and then Zimbabwe were still importing wheat it did not make much difference what types or what mix of types we were importing. But when we hit self-sufficiency in the 2022 harvest, and then a surplus in the harvest last year and now a larger surplus in this year’s harvest, it does. It seems daft to have a surplus of common wheat and a need to import durum wheat.
Several varieties of durum were licensed for Zimbabwe farmers in the 1980s, but never really grown and even those types are no longer available. But we now do have a large pool of expert wheat farmers who should be able to add durum to their cropping cycles, first experimenting with likely types and then working out the sort of mix that the market wants.
Common wheat will always dominate, and should not be cut back, but that extra 5 percent of whatever the very modest percentage that should be durum can be added.
It would probably be easier to grow, as it can handle higher temperatures and uses less water although apparently likes limestone soils.
But still, as we continue making wheats a more important part of our national diet we should have the full range. A glance around supermarkets shows pastas building up in volume on the shelves, and too many of those dried pastas are foreign brands.
We can extend our range of locally grown pastas. We do not have to limit ourselves to macaroni and spaghetti. We used to produce a far wider range, even with imported durum wheat, and we could get that range back with our own durum and then build up an export market since most African countries are short of wheat and have to import. But we should be exporting products, not grain.
Rice is in theory trickier. The Asian species tends to need a lot of water, those flooded paddy fields we see in all the pictures. But there is an African species that is grown widely in West Africa and can be found in parts of Zimbabwe, although as almost a luxury food and in very small quantities. This still needs water, but a lot less and damp land rather than flooded land.
Japanese researchers have made major advances in producing an African-Asian cross, with the advantages of the higher Asian yield and its softer grains along with the ability to grow in African conditions.
This has been offered to Zimbabwe and it seems time for some practical extension research to see where it can be grown, to grow some and then
test out the markets, or even create markets.
Again it appears that not only is there the local demand, which appears to be growing on the evidence of supermarket trolleys, but again there are export markets, at least outside West Africa, so we get the processing value added as well as the actual grain.
Barley is grown in Zimbabwe, a very precise variety contracted by Delta who need it for malting for clear beers, although they extend on cost ground the carbohydrate mix in most beers with cheaper maize, using malt for flavouring rather than as the carbohydrate source. But as Namibia has shown, there is a market, a good market, for premium pure malt lagers, and very little has been done in this part of the world for top fermented beers, the ales, rather than the colder bottom fermented lagers.
Nigeria was an early example of manufacture of heavy ales and those sell well in that country, at least to the non-Muslim population. There is some specialist brewing of these beers in Zimbabwe, if you know where to look, so a potential market does exist, and we know barleys grow here.
The rapid expansion in traditional grains, as the Government sensibly concentrates on these in the drier ecological regions where, except in extreme drought a crop is almost guaranteed rather than maize. These were within living memory, although we are now talking about very old people, the staple diet.
Maize was introduced over centuries as varieties drifted up the trade routes from Portuguese coastal trading stations but was largely eaten as roasted green maize in season, mealie meal sadza only starting to become dominant from the 1920s and even then taking its time. But the higher maize yields, plus the far easier grinding and processing, ensured its almost total takeover.
A second problem was the indifferent research in traditional grains, with those doing the research not eating the product but rather seeking stockfeeds from the commercial crop and not worrying about the humans who might still eat it.
Consequently taste never ranked high on the research agenda, except for opaque beers made for sale. That is one reason why the Rufaro made by Harare City Council was so unpopular and why Chibuku was smuggled into high density suburbs, until the council handed over its breweries and supply to Chibuku, even if the resulting better beer was labelled Rufaro for sale in municipal outlets. Bulawayo always produced a more acceptable product.
A lot of almost artisanal work has been done in recent years in producing traditional grains and meals that people might eat, but the full range is only found in the more well-off suburbs, the rich and middle income coming to like the product while maize meal dominates with the majority urban population. We have the oddity that the cheaper grain is used in the more expensive products.
Again we need that combination of finding the best varieties, and there are hundreds since these grains are indigenous to Africa, and then as superior taste can be a selling point start the marketing and then the export markets.
Bongani Ndlovu