OIL Expressers Association chairman, Busisa Moyo, has called on government to review its ban on the use of genetically modified varieties in soya bean production in order to increase local output and reduce reliance on costly imports.

Zimbabwe imports the bulk of its soya bean requirements, resulting in an increase in the import bill. 

Moyo said imports could be significantly reduced by the introduction of genetically modified organism (GMO) varieties in local production.
The country’s oil seed import needs grew from 50 percent in 2001 to 90 percent in 2014, 92 percent in 2015 and 93 percent in 2016.The country requires 150 000 metric tonnes (mt) of soya beans per year but is currently importing 120 000 mt, with local production at 30 000 mt. 
On crude oil, 112 800 mt is imported against a requirement of 120 000 mt, meaning that local production is at 7 200 mt.
Moyo told The Financial Gazette that while the country prohibited the production of genetically modified soya, it was importing the same genetically modified soya and soya products from other countries.
“Right now we are importing from Argentina, we are importing from South America, Australia — getting crude oils, stock feeds. Those stock feeds are GMO soyas. That’s why we want the spotlight on that as we build the hectarage as well because we can have a double win. Increase the hectarage and introduce genetically modified varieties,” Moyo said.
He added: “So we are killing ourselves. We are importing GMO. The oil, we don’t test it for GMO traces. It’s impossible to pick up GMO traces in cooking oil because of the molecular structure in the GMOs,” he said.
Moyo argued that soya bean should not be viewed like other crops such as maize, in which GMO production is also banned, because the consumption patterns of products in the soya bean chain were different from those of maize.
“On maize, fine, because we eat the maize directly. It’s not like people eat the soya beans. We crush, we burn it; we do all sorts of things so we feel we should be more relaxed on commercial soya beans.
“We should allow for GMO beans. So basically what we are saying is that we need to review our non GMO policy because we have a non GMO policy that says we do not allow for genetically modified soya beans but that depresses our yields. You can double yield without increasing your hectarage. So this is a big thing if you want to grow your agricultural output, especially for cooking oil processing,” he said.
The country is experiencing a serious foreign currency shortage mainly driven by its huge import bill.  By Farai Mabeza

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