HARARE – Farmers’ unwillingness to supply grain to the Grain Marketing Board due to the Grain Marketing Board’s meager purchases and the rise in the real dollar cost of fertilisers have made Zimbabwe’s food security issues worse. Despite the increase in financial incentives provided to farmers by the government for the sale of their crops, deliveries of maize and small grains to GMB depots remain below average and significantly below levels from the previous year. The government kept the 90 USD per MT incentive in place while raising the producer price for maize by 33.3% in July, from 75,000 ZWL to 100,000 ZWL per MT.
However, according to key informants, there isn’t much grain left for farmers to be able to provide to the GMB given last season’s far below average harvests, aside from a few farmers who choose to withhold grain from the market for speculative reasons. Meanwhile, reports suggest that Zambian maize grain imports that were arranged by the private sector
have begun to arrive in the nation. This grain will be used to make stock feed and, in smaller quantities, by commercial millers. This season, the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe apparently intends to import 400,000 MT of maize, but the government has declared that it will not do so.
Prices for maize grains in USD and ZWL are above average and are still rising. Prices per 17.5kg bucket in surplus-producing areas range between 4 and 5 USD, when they should generally be between 3 and 4 USD at this time of year. When and where available, current prices in the majority of deficit-producing areas are up to 8 USD per bucket, which are prices that are normally not anticipated until the peak lean season between January and March. According to the World Food Programme, average maize grain prices in ZWL in July were early 400 and 500 percent higher than the same period the previous year, and were 49 and 27% higher than June in rural and urban areas, respectively.
According to a recent study, farmers’ continuing refusal to supply corn to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) will increase inflationary pressures on an economy already dealing with the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Official figures show that Zimbabwe has the highest inflation levels in the region and the southern African nation is facing food shortages in both rural and urban centres. While prices are soaring, unhappy local farmers continue holding onto their maize harvest in protest over low prices offered by the government through the GMB amid concerns that side marketing remains rife despite new government measures restricting the movement of grain.
It is understood the government is paying farmers US$90 at the interbank exchange rate and
ZW$100,000 (US$153) as the actual maize price per tonne. But with low yields per hectare due to rudimentary agricultural prices and high costs of inputs, among other factors, most farmers are struggling to reach a break-even point. Unhappy local farmers continue to hoard their maize harvest in protest at the low rates granted by the government through the GMB despite rising grain prices, worried that side marketing will persist despite new government restrictions on grain transportation.
Officially, the grain reserves hold nearly 800,000 t. Zimbabwe requires 1.8 million tonnes of maize annually and, with the projection, the country would need to import upwards of 400 000 t. The government believes that food-insecure rural households require a total of 720,707 tonnes of cereal to meet their needs over a year, while food-insecure urban households require 500,321 tonnes of maize during the same period.
