‘Wheat will not go bad’

The Government was supposed to have announced the producer price by 30 September.
The farmers are saying the delay by Government to announce the producer price was making it difficult to negotiate the price with millers.

“Most farmers have facilities to keep the grain in good condition for a long time so there are no fears of it going bad. What is required is just to keep the wheat in a dry place,” said the ZCFU chief economist Mr Peter Gambara.

Mr Gambara said farmers were holding onto the wheat because millers were refusing to buy the wheat at $475 per tonne which the farmers were demanding.
In the last marketing season, the producer price of wheat was pegged at $466 per tonne.

“The millers are not willing to buy wheat at $475 per tonne which the farmers are demanding arguing that the landed price of imported wheat is $410 per tonne,” he said.
Mr Gambara said most of the imported wheat especially from Germany was coming via Mozambique.

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Deputy Minister Seiso Moyo has said Government through his ministry would soon announce the new producer price of wheat and at the moment they were busy assessing the national strategic grain reserves.
According to Mr Gambara, although the rains had come late this year, farming activities in most parts of the country were subdued because some of the farmers who expected to raise money from selling their wheat had no money to buy inputs for the 2011/12 summer cropping season.

He said funding challenges among farmers were also being worsened by the late payment of maize deliveries to the Grain Marketing Board.
This year 12 000 hectares were put under winter wheat and farmers expected to harvest 60 000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director Mr Paul Zakariya has urged the Government to liberalise the marketing of wheat so that market forces could determine the producer price.
He said in the event of Government insisting on setting the producer price, it should announce the price before the onset of the marketing season.

Due to many challenges facing the agriculture sector, wheat production in the country has dropped to unprecedented levels.
Zimbabwe needs 400 000 tonnes of wheat annually in order to meet national demand.