Farai Mabeza, Senior Staff Writer 
THE Grain Marketing Board (GMB) says the country has sufficient grain reserves to see it through to next year’s harvest.
This comes as the government has said marketing of grain during the 2022/23 season will be geared towards the revised target of 1,5 million metric tonnes, up from 500 000 metric tonnes.
“We are talking about maize and traditional grains. They form our basic strategic grain reserve. We have 566 000 metric tonnes set aside as strategic grain reserves.
“This is going to take us to the next harvest without any fear at all,” GMB chief executive Rockie Mutenha told The Financial Gazette on the sidelines of the Zimbabwe Institute of Strategic Thinking annual conference in Kariba last week.
Agriculture minister Anxious Masuka
“The reserve is meant for two categories of users; millers who mill mealie-meal and social welfare for the vulnerable,” he added.
Mutenha said the GMB had finished making payments for maize and traditional grains and was now seized with wheat deliveries and payments.
“For wheat … we have received about $8 billion to pay for wheat including the forex component,” he said.
Agriculture minister Anxious Masuka recently said the new strategic grain reserve target of 1,5 million metric tonnes comprised 300 000 metric tonnes of traditional grains and 1,2 million metric tonnes of maize.
He said the government was aiming to capitalise on the momentum created by the expected record wheat harvest during the summer cropping season, which is already underway.
“We must build on this momentum into the summer season to assure our nation of perennial food security, away from the episodic weather-deterred food security escapades of the past,” Masuka said.
He added that improvements to government programmes such as Pfumvudza/Intwasa would help boost production towards the new targets.
“With the Presidential Climate-proofed Input Scheme (Pfumvudza/Intwasa) now better fine-tuned so that what is grown or reared is determined by the requirements of the agro-ecological region, and the establishment of 35 000 farmer field schools across 35 000 villages, we are laying a firm foundation for resilient and robust agricultural growth,” Masuka said.
“In the process, some 3,5 million rural households and 500 000 peri-rural (previously peri-urban) families are benefitting countrywide,” he added.
Meanwhile, the government has announced that funding for commercial farmers under the National Enhanced Agriculture Productivity Scheme (NEAPS) is being reviewed following the challenges experienced since the inception of the programme, which include side marketing by farmers and reluctance to deliver produce to the GMB citing low grain prices.
Delivery of grain by farmers using different names is also making it difficult for the stop order system to recover loans.
“The low recovery rate has necessitated the government to explore options, which ensure sustainability of agriculture financing, including crowding in private sector investment in agriculture and adopting a competitive grain pricing and purchasing model,” Finance minister Mthuli Ncube said in the 2023 national budget.
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