Online Reporter
Edgar Vhera
Specialist Writer – Agribusiness
Agriculture stakeholders have called on the Government to incentivise and ramp up production of drought-tolerant sunflower and cotton, in order to ameliorate the effects of the forecasted El Niño in the 2026/27 season and to cut down on oilseed product imports.
The Government has designated cotton and sunflower as key policy crops that are predominantly grown by smallholder farmers, serving as engines for the transformation of communities.
The country’s import substitution drive suffered a setback in the oilseed industry, as imports surged 21 percent to US$425 million last year, up from US$351 million in 2024, thereby erasing gains made in 2023 and 2024.
Statistics from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) show that Zimbabwe’s oilseed and crude oil imports rose 290 percent, from US$95 million in 2019 to US$370 million in 2022.
As a result of increased production in 2023, the country saved US$94 million that year, when imports declined to US$276 million.
Oilseed and crude oil imports increased to US$351 million in 2024, owing to the El Niño experienced that year.
In 2025, production rose in many crop enterprises, but oilseed industry imports reached a new peak of US$425 million.
Zimbabwe imports crude soya bean oil (whether or not degummed), cooking oil of soya bean, other soya bean oil (excluding crude) and its fractions, epoxidised soya bean oil, soya sauce, oil-cake and other solid residues of soya bean, soya beans (whether or not broken), other soya beans (whether or not broken), and soya bean flour and meal.
It also imports oil-cake and other solid residues of sunflower seeds, sunflower seeds (whether or not broken), crude sunflower-seed and safflower oil, and cooking oil of sunflower seed.
The country imports crude cotton-seed oil (whether or not gossypol has been removed), cooking oil of cotton seed, oil-cake and other solid residues of cotton seeds, and cotton seeds.
The executive administrator of the Stockfeed Manufacturers Association of Zimbabwe (SMAZ), Dr Reneth Mano, said stakeholders were worried about the collapse of oilseed production, as the industry was favouring soya bean seed and crude oil imports for cooking oil production.
“The rise in imports is the untold story of how a skewed import trade policy can systematically destroy national self-sufficiency in oilseed production – a self-sufficiency that was achieved in the 1970s and sustained throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
“A freely liberalised import policy for vegetable oils is completely destroying the incentive structures, propelling the systematic de-industrialisation of the oilseed industry,” he said.
Dr Mano said sustained imports were reducing the once-vibrant, farm-to-shelf domestic oilseed processing complex, which performs serious biochemistry far beyond what is currently done in vegetable oil factories.
“We now specialise in the final deodorising stage of vegetable oil refining, before packaging for the wholesale market.
“Our clarion call is for the Government to incentivise the production of sunflower, cotton and soya beans,” he urged.
An analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity warned that, although the Government has called on the private sector to source 40 percent of raw materials locally, some oil-expressing companies continue to import oilseed and crude oil without financing domestic production.
“We don’t have money to fund and/or contract local farmers, as we are importing crude oil or soya beans to ensure the country has enough cooking oil and stockfeed for the livestock industry,” he said.
An Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) report dated July 24 revealed that sunflower marketing had declined by 8 percent to 5 181 tonnes this year, from 5 631 tonnes in the comparable period last year.
The report also indicated that farmers had delivered 21,3 million kilogrammes of seed cotton, valued at US$5,2 million and ZiG59,3 million. This represented a 15 percent drop from 25,3 million kilogrammes last year.
On a positive note, soya bean intake has risen 58 percent, from 28,924 tonnes to 45,744 tonnes. If Zimbabwe is to produce the all-time high yields of 140 793 tonnes of soya bean (achieved in 2001), 90 479 tonnes of sunflower (for 2023) and 353 000 tonnes of seed cotton (for 2000), then the country would need to import crude oil worth only US$115 million to ensure cooking oil self-sufficiency.
