‘Soya bean price will improve production’
THE $780 per tonne soya bean price Government announced recently, will help promote production of the crop, ensure national food security and save foreign currency used for importing crude oil, farmers’ organisations have said.
The development comes at a time when the Government is stepping up efforts for farmers to grow more soya beans, a critical raw material in the production of edible oil to help meet 300 000 tonnes of the seed required by the domestic market annually.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director Paul Zakariya, told The Herald Business that the price is very attractive for farmers and this will encourage more people to grow it.
“We are very happy with the new price of soya bean as it will enable farmers to finance their business.
“It is only a matter of time before farmers deliver their crop to the Grain Marketing Board, we are hoping that with the announced price, farmers will deliver as many tonnes they can to the marketing board as it has the highest price on offer.
“The quick delivery of the crop will help the authorities to know the tonnes they have in stock and the tonnes they need to import to supplement locally produced soya,” said Mr Zakariya.
The gazetted price was arrived at after consultations with other relevant stakeholders.
He said the new price will curb side-marketing.
Due to the need to import crude oil, Government has come up with initiatives to boost production of oil seed crops including soyabean, which include a lucrative price and also putting the crops under Command Agriculture starting 2018/ 19 season.
This will ensure the oil processing industry has adequate raw materials to boost production.
Zimbabwe needs about 300 000 tonnes of soya per annum but recently the country has been producing only 30 000 tonnes.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) president Wonder Chabikwa weighed in: “This is the best soya bean price so far, probably in the region or Africa. This is an attractive price which encourages the farmer to grow not only for national food security but for personal profits.
“We expect a number of soya bean farmers to improve from next season going forward.”
Treasury also lauded the new soya bean producer price as the importation of crude oil is gobbling over $200 million yearly.
Last week, Oil Expressers Association of Zimbabwe president Busisa Moyo, said the country needs a maximum of $8 million weekly to import crude oil and hiking the crop’s price will increase its productivity.
“We are happy with this price as it will encourage more farmers to grow the crop so that we can procure it locally.
“This will save us a great deal of foreign currency that we are grappling with.
“This will see more farmers going to banks to obtain loans to grow the cash crop,” said Mr Moyo.
Various local cooking oil producers have started contracting local growers to increase production and reduce imports.
Apart from the production of edible oil, soya beans can be used to make stock feeds.
Government requires around $200 million for the 2018 /2019 Command Soya Bean Scheme.