Chronicle Editor
Canditar Chapanduka, Business Reporter
United Refineries Limited (URL) chief executive officer (CEO) Mr Busisa Moyo says there is consensus within the soya beans sector that this year’s production is likely to exceed 100 000 tonnes.
By achieving the tonnage, there will be a positive ripple effect on the soya bean value chain.
Employment creation in the whole soya bean ecosystem would be felt in addition to price models of various products responding positively.
In an interview yesterday on the sidelines of a value chain review workshop, Mr Moyo said the soya bean value chain has potential to accommodate various agro-processing players and potential to reach 100 000 tonnes this year.
Ideally, the country requires close to 300 000 tonnes of soya beans to satisfy demand, however, the country is looking to increase soya bean production from the current 80 000 tonnes to 100 000 tonnes on the backdrop of an increased hectarage.
“We started localising end products such as cooking oil, mealie meal and other consumables.
“The next phase is to localise the value chain suppliers or the ecosystem that supplies that end product.
“Soya hectarage is part of that process and this year all active players in the sector have reached a consensus that we are more likely to exceed 100 000 tonnes of soya beans,” Mr Moyo.
“We are in the right direction to localise the value chains. We need to catch up with some of our regional peers.
“If we continue to grow by 20 percent every year, it means we are saving foreign currency and creating employment in the primary production, that is in the farms.
“Downstream from us are stock feed manufacturers and further down we get people in the poultry sector, piggery and all these are soya players and there is a multiplier effect.
He said with more localisation in the value chains, there is a high likelihood of positive improvement in availability of products and more so on pricing models.
Soya bean is a major raw material for cooking oil production and is also used to produce stock feeds, soya chunks, flour, and soya milk, among other products.
In addition, soya bean is a critical raw material required by various agro-processing companies, as it can be value added to different products compared to other oil seed crops.
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