daniel chigunwe
Edgar Vhera
Agriculture Specialist Writer
ZIMBABWEAN producers look set to exploit the window period in the United Kingdom and European markets when prices are high because of depressed supplies, to start exporting their peas.
The country produces most of its peas in the winter period when most international suppliers would have exited the market. This enables exporters to send produce to European markets to take advantage of high prices as products from Guatemala, the main supplier, are no longer available on the market.
A local horticulture exporting company, Kuminda, recently said it had started shipping produce harvested at the end of last month to the UK.
“This week we collaborated with another exporter and sent our second shipment for the 2024 season to UK. Let’s write the story together,” said Kuminda chief executive officer, Mr Clarence Mwale in a recent X post.
Kuminda is a multinational company founded in Zimbabwe, whose main goal is to empower African farmers by providing them with access to international markets.
Another local horticulture producer and exporter, Lingflora, said they would start exporting in the coming weeks.
Lingflora operations director, Mr Tatenda Karimazondo said: “We will start exporting our mangetout and sugar snap peas next week to catch high prices, which were until now, low due to oversupply from Egypt and Guatemala. We expect peas from Guatemala and Egypt to exit the market soon for prices to start rising.”
He said they were planning to put 30 hectares under peas this year and had also contracted six out-growers to do another 20 hectares to produce a target of 700 tonnes.
“We have so far planted 20 hectares and it takes eight weeks for peas to mature and four to five weeks of picking. We plant every two weeks in order to spread our delivery to the market,” he added.
The cut-off time for planting is mid-May and between end of August and first week of September, all peas deliveries would have ended.
Zimbabwe exports peas via both air and sea, depending on the period.
“In the first two months (up to mid-June) of market entry, we use air freight to get high prices, but after that we start using the sea, which takes over three weeks to reach the market and prices tend to be low due to the entry of more products from Peru.
“Currently we are using the Durban or Cape Town ports but we want to try the Beira port this year after learning from the experience of citrus farmers last year,” pointed Mr Karimazondo.
A free on board (FOB) price of anything above US$2,50 per kg is considered a firm price for peas.
Mr Karimazondo was optimistic that the structured currency was going to eliminate the disparity between the official bank and parallel rates.
“The 25 percent local currency that we get after 75 percent of our receipts in foreign currency, acts as tax if there is a wide disparity between the bank and parallel market rates,” he observed.
Meanwhile, statistics from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStats) show that there was a 3 percent rise in fresh peas export earnings from US$2 725 152 in 2022 to US$2 803 400 last year.
In volume terms, it declined slightly by three percent from 2 426 065kg in 2022 to 2 359 573kg in 2023.
Online Reporter