Du Pont Pioneer maize seeds
Enacy Mapakame Business Reporter —
SEED breeder Du Pont Pioneer said sales volumes for the 2016/17 agriculture season have jumped 78 percent to 8 000 tonnes, driven by high maize seed demand for command agriculture.
Speaking on the sidelines of a tour of seed companies by Parliamentarians yesterday, country manager Mr Temba Nkatazo said exports were also expected to increase 87 percent to 1 500 tonnes on the back of high demand in West Africa.
Government adopted supervised command agriculture with a target of financing 400 000 hectares of the maize crop. The programme is expected to produce two million tonnes of maize, which would drastically cut the food import bill and enhance food security.
The programme involves identifying competent maize farmers, who are being provided inputs as well as irrigation and mechanised equipment.
“We are supplying for command agriculture and we have already moved close to 1 000 tonnes. The total seed we are supplying is 4 500. There are, however, some delays due to payment challenges,” said Mr Nkatazo.
Outside the command agriculture programme, the company expects to supply 3 500 tonnes on the local market. Du Pont Pioneer is also targeting to supply 1 000 tonnes of soya beans and 500 tonnes of sugar beans this season.
“The market uptake has been positive especially last week after some parts of the country received rains,” he said.
He added while seed exports had become a challenge in the past few years, the company had secured a 1 000 tonnes order for the Cameroon market and an additional 500 tonnes for Mozambique.
“We have one particular order which is about 1000 tonnes and we are also expecting to export 500 tonnes to Mozambique. We have also done sugar beans exports, to Malawi and South Africa.”
Meanwhile another seed company, Agriseeds says it ready for the 2016/ 17 season with seed already distributed across the country for easy accessibility by farmers.
Managing director Mr Simon Nyanhete said the seed company anticipates an upsurge in sales volumes on the back of the presidential input scheme.
“Everything is ready for the farmers, we are also participating in the Presidential input scheme,” he said.
Like any sector of the economy, seed companies have been affected by the cash shortages that began early this year. Mr Nyanhete said his company was embracing plastic money and anticipated to have point of sale machines by next farming season for ease transacting with farmers.