THE first consignment of massive quantities of imported maize will arrive in Zimbabwe on 20 June, as the country moves to stem looming shortages of grain amid failure of the much-vaunted Command Agriculture scheme to provide food security.
Despite sinking US$3 billion into Command Agriculture to ensure food security, Zimbabwe finds itself having to spend more on imports as farmers refuse to deliver grain to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) at below market prices.
The government recently reacted by launching a security-led campaign to force farmers to deliver grain to the GMB.
Seeing that the security campaign had been met with widespread condemnation, the government this week moved to use financial incentives to encourage farmers to deliver grain to the national silos.
An incentive of US$90 per tonne of grain will be paid to farmers who will sell their maize to the GMB before month end on top of the fixed ZW$75 000 per tonne to raise the price to at least US$270 per tonne.
Farmers had been refusing to deliver grain, citing below market prices.
This prompted government to launch a futile search-and-seize campaign to get grain.
Cabinet resolved that the bonus will be backdated to April when the marketing season began as it battles looming hunger.
Speaking to The NewsHawks, Grain Millers’ Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) national chairperson Tafadzwa Musarara confirmed that Zimbabwe will receive its first trucks of maize on 20 June.
“We are doing all the processes now and we are hoping that the first truck should start coming in by no later than 20 June,” Musarara said.
“We have made contingency measures to import grain in addition to whatever we get. There are countries with much better grain production, they are importing because we do not know when the Russia-Ukraine war will end, maybe it will degenerate further, we don’t know. Many countries are importing.
“They are building their food security. International best practice is that a country must have a minimum three years’ cover of grain,” he added.
Musarara said even food sufficient countries were stocking up to ensure food security as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gets prolonged while global warming continues to be a factor hampering food production in the country.
“On the maize side, it does not matter whether we have grown enough or not. We are faced with a problem of global warming. Last week, in some places there were rains. That will delay the coming in of grain. Where we are, given that we are dealing with Russia, which is number one in terms of wheat production and Ukraine, which is number five, it is incumbent on us to say are we stocked,” he said.
Musarara admitted that it is costly to import maize and wheat, which are already in short supply in Zimbabwe.
“There isn’t much of a shortage, but an increase in cost, yes,” he said.
He added that the cost of wheat had gone up 55% owing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We have a situation where the wheat has gone up by 55% on the global market largely influenced by the geopolitics of Eastern Europe. It can be available, you can see bread is still
available, we are importing. The dual pricing has helped us, because on the other side we are able to get money from the auction system and on the other side using our US dollar receipts,” Musarara said.
Command Agriculture is a government-run import substitution-led industrialisation concept deliberately meant to empower local producers of cereal crops, particularly maize, to ensure food security.
Introduced for the 2016/17 agricultural summer season, the programme was expected to produce a maize bumper harvest.
The programme was projected to produce in excess of 2 million tonnes of maize on 400 000 hectares of land.
Vaunted as a resounding success, Command Agriculture has been widely regarded as a failure, with Zimbabwe continuing to face the spectre of hunger, with millions in urgent need of food aid.
According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet), nearly 10 million Zimbabweans face hunger.
Riddled with corruption and misappropriation of billions of inputs, the Command Agriculture façade has come off in dramatic fashion.
On Command Agriculture’s failure to ensure food security in Zimbabwe, Musarara said: “That one is done by government, it is them who should comment.”
Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU) executive director Paul Zakariya admitted that farmers were expecting poor yields, urging the government to cover the gap through imports.
“What happens is that it is government responsibility to stock up what they call the strategic reserves in a season where the yields are low. These past two seasons have been different. We are anticipating a lower yield and it is normal for government to stock up,” Zakariya said.
On reasons why farmers were reluctant to deliver grain to the GMB, Zakariya said due to late rains some farmers were late in harvesting.
“Seasons are a bit different, we ended up having a lot of rain in April when we were supposed to be harvesting. The grain still had high moisture levels. We still have a lot we need to deliver apart from the 12 000 metric tonnes already delivered,” he said.
