US$800m needed for 2012/13 farming season

The report was presented to the Zanu-PF 13th Annual National Peo­ples Conference that was officially opened by President Mugabe here yes­terday.
The US$800 million is required to finance the acquisition of seed, agro-chemicals and working capital.
“This amount should be enough to cover 2.63 million hectares. Seed houses (Pannar, Pioneer and Seed Co) have assured the nation that they have enough seed for the season,” the report noted.

According to the report, Govern­ment has since come up with a broad framework to support farmers this farming season.
The Central Committee noted that preparations for the farming season have gone on well with the inputs situ­ation relatively stable.
Zimbabwe requires about 600 000 metric tonnes of fertiliser against the current available total of 252 488 met­ric tonnes. The report noted that there is a surplus of 16 482 seed maize to the national requirements of about 50 000 metric tonnes.

Other inputs like small grains, groundnuts and cowpeas are, how­ever, in short supply.
There is a positive trend in tobacco farming with 54 482 farmers regis­tered for the 2012-2013 season com­pared to 28 808 last season.
“The number of tobacco growers is increasing every year with small-scale farmers proving to be driving the sec­tor,” further reads the report.

Livestock inputs are available but require an appropriate financing struc­ture to enable access by farmers.
The report noted that a number of players were set to assist farmers in con­tract farming especially soya beans, tobacco and cotton.

The Grain Marketing Board and Agribank have targeted 4000 hectares for soya beans production while some oil pressers have committed US$5 mil­lion for soya bean contract farm­ing.
The report says 15 companies were registered for cotton contract farming with 90 000 tobacco growers having been targeted.

The Agricultural Marketing Author­ity has been authorised to raise US$25 million through treasury bills to finance soya bean production.
Agribank will be establishing a US$15 million credit facility targeting A2 farmers and other eligible farmers while the Commercial Bank of Zim­babwe and Stanbic Bank have US$20 million and US$10 million perform­ance based credit facility.