Source: ‘Farmers to deliver 1m tonnes of maize by Sept’ – DailyNews Live

Gift Phiri  17 July 2017

HARARE – Zimbabwean farmers are expected to deliver 1 million tonnes of
maize to the State grain agency by September, Davis Marapira, deputy
Agriculture minister responsible for cropping has said.

Marapira said the government-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB), which in the
past has struggled to pay for maize, was now paying farmers upon delivery.
He said over 160 000 tonnes of grain have already been delivered so far
and were expected to shoot up from mid-July till August.

“We expect more maize to dry and deliveries will increase from mid-July to
August and we expect more tonnes to be delivered to GMB. We expect over
one million tonnes by September,” he said.

The GMB has been rejecting grain from farmers for high moisture content,
with the rejected crop being sold on the parallel market.

GMB accepts grain with a moisture content of not more than 12,5 percent.

Agriculture minister Joseph Made told the Senate last week that government
will start drying maize grain to prevent spoilage during storage.

“It is an issue that we are attending to and hopeful that in the next
season, the dryers will be there to assist in ensuring that the maize that
is delivered has the correct moisture content,” Made said in response to a
question by MDC proportional representation senator Keresencia Chabuka
that rejected maize was being sold to conmen who in turn resale the same
maize to the GMB.

“There may be a few isolated cases now, but it is not all the GMB depots
that have issues of corruption. We are dealing with these problems once
they have been reported.”

Marapira said the increasing grain deliveries attested to the success of
Command Agriculture. Mugabe’s government announced the scheme last year,
which is paying farmers $390 a tonne for maize to woo farmers to plant.

The Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe – a grouping of the 100 biggest
private millers – has entered a deal to buy 800 000 tonnes of maize
produced under the Command Agriculture scheme for $242 a tonne, with
government standing to lose $147 per tonne.

Sakunda is bankrolling Command Agriculture, which the opposition alleges
is an illegal parallel programme of the State specifically designed to
pursue a narrow electoral agenda specifically the 2018 harmonised
elections.

Former Finance minister Tendai Biti’s opposition PDP party complained that
the financing by Sakunda is being done parallel to the legal framework of
the Consolidated Revenue Fund for which oversight is in the hands of the
people of Zimbabwe through their elected representatives in Parliament.

Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa has told the National Assembly that
government engaged Sakunda Holdings to bankroll Command Agriculture after
realising that commercial banks were not lending to farmers.