admintake maize packaged in any grain bags and only accepts deliveries in bags marked GMB.
Farmers attending an Agricultural Marketing Authority meeting in Mvurwi recently raised concern over the way the GMB was treating them.
They expressed concern over the rejection of other bags when GMB did not have enough packaging materials in stock.
Some farmers were using cleaned fertilizer bags for maize packaging, while others bought the bags on the parallel market.
Responding to farmers’ concerns, Mvurwi GMB representative, Mrs Faith Taruvinga, said the company would only accept high quality bags.
“It is not an issue of the bags being bought from GMB but the quality of the bags. Some of the bags being used by farmers are of poor quality and tear off easily while others have different sizes, which makes handling difficult,” she said.
Mrs Taruvinga said some farmers were delivering their grain in 90kg bags, while others used 50kg bags.
“The varying sizes makes it difficult to store the grain. We want uniformity for easier staking,” she said.
Grain bags are sold at US$0,60 cents each while farmers would receive US$0,45 cents refunds per bag after selling their grain to the board.
Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made, recently warned GMB against ill-treating farmers.
He said this would discourage farmers from producing and selling their crops to the parastatal.
Farmers had complained over the payment of charges for moisture content fees for generators and refusal by GMB to accept maize delivered in other bags.
The GMB has, however, introduced free moisture content tests for farmers.
Online Reporter