‘Zim inundated with grain import inquiries’
Farmers have already started delivering grain to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) with volumes intensifying every week. Our Senior Agriculture Reporter, Elita Chikwati (EC) talks to Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph M
ZMaize IMBABWE is celebrating achievements registered by the Special Programme for Import Substitution popularly known as Command Agriculture, with the country achieving about 2,5 million tonnes of cereal grains with maize being the major one.
The nation has achieved its aim of ensuring food self sufficiency at household and national level, thanks to the efforts being implemented in line with the objectives of the Food Security and Nutrition Cluster of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-economic Transformation (Zim-Asset).
The achievements encapsulate the 10-point Plan for Economic Growth as enunciated by President Mugabe. EC: What is the current situation concerning grain deliveries to the Grain Marketing Board? JM: Grain intake at the GMB has continued to increase, with the Strategic Grain Reserve (SRG) approaching 500 000 tonnes. Weekly maize deliveries have also gone up and are now averaging 90 000 tonnes per week. EC: How much in terms of grain is
the country expecting? JM: Zimbabwe is expecting to harvest four million tonnes of food crops from the 2016-2017 agricultural seasons. The food crops include maize, sorghum, millet, roundnuts, groundnuts, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, cowpeas, squash, sugar beans and pumpkins. The increase in food production has been attributed to the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme and Command Agriculture programme, good rains, farmers’ hard work and self-financed farmers. EC: How much in terms of silo capacity do we still have for the grain? JM: The cylindrical silos will soon be full and most of the grain is coming from the A2 farmers. The cylindrical silos have a capacity of 700 000 tonnes of grain while the hard stands have the capacity of 3, 3 million tonnes. The weekly delivery of 90 000 tonnes is going to be surpassed as the current deliveries are still mainly from A2 farmers, but soon it will be a combination of communal, A1, old resettlement and small-scale commercial sectors. These farmers are now busy preparing to shell their crops. EC: So what will happen when the
cylindrical silos get full? JM: The SGR figures are going up. Very soon SGR will reach 500 000. On the ground, cylindrical silos, which cater for 700 000 tonnes are getting full, which means we have to switch to the hard stand silos. EC: GMB is distributing grain bags to farmers, but in some areas farmers are complaining of shortages of the packaging material. What is your comment? JM: GMB must distribute grain bags to all farmers because in some cases the farmers do not have the capacity to deliver grain in bulk. GMB should also take the grain, whether in GMB bags from own source, but the bags should be of good quality so that grain is not lost. EC: Does the GMB have adequate
manpower for the grain intake? JM: The GMB will now have to re-engage on a contract basis the workers who were laid off so that the depots can handle the grain coming in. Manpower is also required to man the hard stand silos. Activity will also intensify as the same depots are also going to be handling inputs for the Presidential Well-Wishers Inputs Scheme. This means there will be a lot of work at the current and satellite depots. We gave a directive to the GMB chairman to speed up the setting of satellite depots now that we are handling Presidential inputs. Cotton inputs under the Presidential Inputs Scheme are also being moved to various depots. EC: Some farmers have been complaining over delays at the GMB when they deliver their crop. What have you done to ensure all farmers are served? JM: I am happy because the GMB has taken heed of instructions that all depots should remain open until all deliveries are cleared. I do not expect any farmers to be turned back. Activity is also going to increase at Bulawayo GMB as grain from the northern parts of the country will be moved to the area. EC: Are there any other activities
at the Bulawayo GMB depot? JM: We are going to intensify the work because there are three activities to happen in Bulawayo concerning GMB, Cotton Company of Zimbabwe and Cold Storage Company. The increase in activities at the GMB depot means more employment in Bulawayo. EC: You recently announced the re-introduction of entities such as the Cold Storage Commission, Cotton Marketing Board and Dairy Marketing Board, does this mean there will no longer be the Cold Storage Company and Cottco? JM: With the CSC, we are going to have two entities; Cold Storage Company and the Cold Storage Commission. We are going to re-establish the commission along with the Cotton Marketing Board and Dairy Marketing Board because these are strategic activities. The Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development will be working in relationship to the instructions of the Food Security and Nutrition Cluster because of the Livestock, Fisheries and Wildlife Command Programme. Already there is a financier for the
CSC on the issue of abattoir. EC: What will be the role of the Cold
Storage Commission? JM: The Cold Storage Commission has to play a strategic role in the same manner as the GMB, Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, Pig Industry Board and Cotton Marketing Board. There is a major work relating to the re-establishment of the commission in relationship to livestock, fisheries and wildlife slaughter and marketing domestically, regionally and internationally. EC: What is the relationship of these entities with crop production? JM: There is a relationship between these entities, particularly with the commodities of grain, cotton and other oil seeds because there must be sufficient stock feeds. There should be sufficient work done in terms of producing crops and producing livestock. The advantage is that the entities once operated and there is a lot of human resource capacity, industrial base to be resuscitated and employment that should be created for farmers, women and youths. The re-establishment of the boards is to make sure that we secure a capacity to help farmers have marketing channels and paying the investors and financiers. It also gives us the opportunity to re-establish Government monopoly in a positive sense of having farmers produce and assuring supply to agro-processors. EC: In which areas are these entities important?
These entities are strategic in all provinces, but more importantly in Bulawayo. Bulawayo is also the gateway in terms of export strategies. We anticipate the resuscitation of the railway. Bulawayo and Gweru are strategic areas for positioning our entities in that part of the country such as stock feeds and the milling industry. We can export grain, mealie-meal
or grain in any form. This is strategic going north of the
region or sub region. The country is inundated with those who wanted to import agricultural crops and meat products.