Soyabean growing needs partnerships: Mupepereki

enable prices to stabilise.
The call comes in the wake of the closure of plants by oil processing companies Olivine Industries and National Foods due to high costs of production using soyabean produced locally.
In the past, oil processors were importing the raw material, something that they can no longer do due to a rise in costs and export restrictions that countries like Zambia imposed.
Soyabean Promotion Task Force chairman Professor Sheunesu Mupepereki said soya- bean production required public private partnerships.
“Oil processors should play a pivotal role in the production of soyabean in the country not just waiting for the farmers’ product without any input,” he said.
“They should engage the farmers in contract farming as what happens in cotton and tobacco,” he added.
Prof Mupepereki said all the players in the soyabean value chain should feel the pinch of producing the crop.
“No one should get soyabean for free or at very low or very high cost. We want a win-win situation where everybody is rewarded accordingly,” he said.
He said it was high time oil processing companies and farmers met halfway since there was now a vicious circle of blame between the two.
“The two should not spend time arguing over high or low prices, but focus on mass production which will eventually bring the price of the commodity down,” Prof Mupepereki said.
A tonne of soyabean is currently pegged at around US$500, which the oil producers are saying is too high, while farmers say it enables them to recoup production costs. – New Ziana.