Grain loan scheme reintroduced to avert hunger

Minister Made said Manicaland Province will get 96 000 tonnes of grain, Mashonaland Central 78 000, Mashonaland East 76 000, Mashonaland West 70 000, Masvingo 94 000 and Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North 48 000 tonnes each.

“A total of 511 collection points have been established and farmers will be notified through the media soon,” he said.
Minister Made said an inter-ministerial committee, which he will chair, will imple­ment the scheme.
Members of the committee are Local Gov­ernment, Rural and Urban Development Min­ister Ignatius Chombo, Minister of Transport, Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Paurina Mpar­iwa and Finance Minister Tendai Biti.

Minister Made said the terms of reference included urgently putting in place modalities for successful implementation of the scheme to ensure grain was immediately moved to GMB depots and sub-depots and bring regu­lar reports to Cabinet.
“I want to emphasise that this is not free grain, but a loan and farmers will have to return the equivalent of what they would have been given,” he said.

“The central players in ensuring the list of households to benefit will be the local author­ity which relates to chiefs and headmen.”
Minister Made said chiefs, headmen and sub-headmen will play a role in recovering the grain.
Officials from the local authorities were on the ground preparing for the implementation of the scheme.

“Local chiefs are the ones facing the burden of feeding hungry people and GMB, being a strategic grain reserve, has a direct relation­ship with chiefs,” said Minister Made.
He said the grain loan scheme will run in parallel with the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare’s scheme of feeding the vulner­able.

“The grain loan scheme is separate from the traditional social welfare scheme as those who are able-bodied only qualify for the for­mer,” he said. “Those who are vulnerable; elderly, dis­abled and child headed families will be assisted through the programme of social welfare.”

Minister Mpariwa said on Monday that the Government will release 45 000 tonnes of maize in January for the vulnerable.
She said the intervention was meant to ensure the targeted households had food dur­ing the peak of the hunger season between Jan­uary and March.
“The programme is already operational, tar­geting labour constrained households, that is, households headed by older persons, chroni­cally ill persons, children and persons with dis­abilities,” said Minister Mpariwa.

“These households are being issued with grain vouchers which they use to redeem 50kgs of grain at GMB village distribution points every month.”
GMB is holding 406 00 tonnes of maize when the country needs almost 600 000 tonnes for strategic reserves.
Minister Made said grain deliveries to GMB had increased, especially from A2 farmers.

“So, between now and four months, there will be adequate grain reserves,” he said.