Farmers demand swift payment for deliveries
A SERIES of crunch meetings have kicked off between farmers, government and the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), with farmers pressing authorities to assure them that payments for grain will be prompt this season, businessdigest can report.
Last week, government said it was waiting for results of the first round of the Crops and Livestock Assessment.
But authorities have estimated that Zimbabwe will harvest between 2,5 million and 2,8 million metric tonnes of maize this season.
The State-run GMB, which purchases the bulk of the country’s maize crop, has struggled to pay farmers for many years, even during periods of poor harvests. With farmers expecting a good crop, they want assurances that payments will be quick before values are eroded by currency volatilities and inflation.
Demand for assurances has been a new chorus permeating through famers unions as Zimbabwe prepares for this year’s marketing season.
Two weeks ago, farmers unions made a series of demands to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board before releasing their tobacco crop.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Shadreck Makombe this week confirmed meeting government several times over payments, while GMB chief executive officer Rockie Mutenha said government had already undertaken to build a war chest for maize purchases.
“We had numerous meetings with the government officials where we were guaranteed that the money is there and assured that there is going to be a paradigm shift from the past ways of doing business,” Makombe told businessdigest.
Mutenha said the GMB had sufficient storage and readily available funds to pay for deliveries.
In December government announced the pre-planting producer price for maize at ZW$32 000 (about US$386) per tonne.
It pegged prices for traditional grains at ZW$38 000 (about US$457) per tonne, while the Soya bean pre-planting price was set at ZW$48 000 (about US$578) per tonne. Based on these statistics, government will need about ZW$64 billion (about
US$780 million) to pay for the two million tonnes that it is expected to buy through the GMB.
“We are grateful to the government for availing us with enough financial resources to pay farmers on time in the last two seasons and we have been assured that the funds are available this season. We aim to pay farmers within 72 hours of delivery,” Mutenha told businessdigest.
“The expectation from the farmer is that they are paid promptly just like what happens in the tobacco industry. We have just introduced a farmers’ card which is linked to Visa that will enable farmers to do their normal banking transactions. The advantage of this farmers’ card is that it lessens the waiting period between farmers’ delivery and payment since no transfers between banks will be needed to be done,” he said
Mutenha also commented on the safety of grains.
“The GMB has two main ways of storing grain namely in silos and in warehouses or outside storages using the stacking method of grain bags. The GMB provides grain storage for all types of grain throughout the country,” he said.
“The total storage capacity can amount to 2 500 000 tonnes. The silo grain storage is available at 12 depots where bulk produce can be stored in silo complexes which have a total storage capacity of 736 000 tonnes.
“Then the stacking (outside storage) and warehouses have a combined storage capacity of 1 559 624 tonnes. This excludes open ground that can be used for shortterm storage. — Staff Writer.