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Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Farming Reporter
THE Oil Expressers of Zimbabwe (OEAZ) is in the process of engaging the Government and private players in its efforts to improve the country’s soya beans production as it moves to curb imports.
OEAZ chairman Mr Busisa Moyo said the country will be forced to import edible crude oil after it failed to attain its target on soya bean production.
The early crop assessment from Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Settlement issued on 9 May 2018 showed that the country produced only 60 000 tonnes of soya bean against a requirement of 384 000 tonnes per annum or 32 000 tonnes per month.
“This (low soya production) is our biggest challenge, the forex issue is a last resort because of the first issue, low farmer productivity in growing soya beans. We are engaging farmers (both commercial and local), banks, Government, development partners among others to increase soya bean production and yields in similar fashion to Zambia and Malawi which both produce in excess of 300 000 tonnes and 200 000 tonnes respectively when they were below 80 000 metric tonnes six to seven years ago,” said Mr Moyo.
Zimbabwe requires about 300 000 tonnes, with oil expressers alone requiring 150 000 tonnes to meet their needs.
Last year, soya beans imports drained $172 million from the fiscus, with farmers only managing to produce 30 000 tonnes.
He said there was a need for the Government to expedite the issue of land tenure so as to bring about confidence to farmers to enhance productivity at farms.
“We urgently need the issue of land title to be addressed to give confidence to farmers to invest in their farms since soya requires a fair amount of irrigation infrastructure,” Mr Moyo said.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya said the country was spending about $2 million per week to produce cooking oil largely due to the importation of edible crude oil.
“We need about $2 million per week or so to produce cooking oil and we are importing crude soya oil that’s why we have gone to look for foreign lines of credit so that we import the raw materials, but why should we import? We need to produce soya for ourselves. If we produce more soya beans it means we will have more cooking oil, so we will save foreign currency and we go on to import other things,” noted Dr Mangudya.
@DNsingo
Online Reporter