Online Reporter
Edgar Vhera
Specialist Writer – Agribusiness
STAKEHOLDERS attending the launch of the 2026 agriculture marketing season have commended the Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange’s auction, saying it has the potential to improve price discovery, reduce transactional costs and widen market participation.
ZMX held its first weekly auction for the 2025/26 marketing season last Wednesday with a total of 4 650 tonnes of yellow maize, maize seed, soya beans, soya meal on sale under 13 different lots.
Nine of these sales were successful, with only four failing due to no bids. All the yellow maize with a reserve price of US$340 per tonne was sold at a clearing price of US$350.
This follows recent cabinet approval of five categories of commodity marketing arrangements for the 2025/26 selling season, with ZMX providing a warehouse receipt system (WRS) and supporting a market trading platform for agricultural commodities.
An agriculture expert and Stockfeed Manufacturers Association of Zimbabwe (SMAZ) executive administrator, Dr Reneth Mano, said the ZMX auction system had the potential to modernise and thrust Zimbabwe’s grain marketing system into the contemporary era of information communication and technology-driven efficiencies that have become the hallmark of the international family of grain marketing and price discovery systems.
“By offering a competitive grain auction marketing system for efficient discovery of competitive market-clearing prices of maize for example, ZMX has just offered a lasting solution to every surplus maize farmer planning to sell maize this year.
“The ZMX’s planned weekly public maize auctions are a welcome development because it will provide real-time, accurate weekly updates on grain market prices to farmers in every district and every village through the media and agricultural business advisory officers (ABAOs),” he said.
Dr Mano said in recent years, some nefarious grain traders operating in the villages ripped off smallholder communal and A1 farmers (who produce 60 to 70 percent of commercially traded maize), by misinforming them about prices at which stockfeed and milling firms were buying maize and sorghum, soya beans and sunflower seed.
To aid bulk up their commodities, Dr Mano said farmers were expected to work with ABAOs and farmers’ unions to get organised marketing groups for direct marketing of their maize in the ZMX weekly auction floors and enjoy the expected price of between US$340 and US$360 per tonne, cash.
“The ZMX weekly auction price will continue to serve as the reference price for all domestic grain market transactions.
“Because of regional competition in the domestic retail space, domestic grain and food market prices of Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa will continue to exhibit some degree of integration and harmonisation because of formal or informal cross-border trade,” he noted.
Dr Mano observed that regional grain export and import parity prices will autonomously continue to serve as the domestic minimum and maximum price band circumscribing Zimbabwe’s agricultural and food market pricing system, ensuring that the domestic food value chains remain price competitive.
Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) spokesman, Mr Adolf Chirimuta, concurred that the recently conducted auction was a welcome and positive development for Zimbabwe’s agriculture and agro-processing sectors.
“It strengthens price discovery, enhances market transparency, and provides farmers with a structured and competitive platform to market their produce.
“This move is expected to support increased agricultural production and productivity, as both smallholder and commercial farmers gain clearer market signals and greater confidence to expand output in response to demand,” he said.
GMAZ and agro-processors are keen to participate on the ZMX platform.
“The industry is ready and willing to purchase whatever volumes are made available through the exchange, as processors require consistent and reliable supplies of raw materials to sustain operations and support value addition.
“Overall, this is a commendable step that strengthens linkages between producers and processors, supports growth in both agriculture and agro-processing, and contributes to a more efficient and sustainable agricultural economy,” he highlighted.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) secretary general, Mr Paul Zakariya, said ZMX’s Wednesday grain auction was a very good initiative for popularising the strategic role of a transparent, efficient private sector-anchored grain marketing system and regionally integrated competitive domestic price discovery mechanism for globally tradable grains and oilseeds.
