GMB starts receiving wheat

The Grain Marketing Board has started receiving wheat from farmers, with the parastatal having already taken in more than 23 700 tonnes of the cereal.

Wheat harvesting continues, with farmers being urged to speed up the process to ensure the crop is not affected by early rains.

GMB chief executive Mr Rockie Mutenha yesterday said: “We have received 13 308 tonnes of premium wheat and 10 426 tonne of utility bring the total to 23 734 tonnes.

“GMB has purchased 15 sets of wheat grading machines,” he said. “The machines grade the protein content and the falling numbers. The two parameters are important to determine whether wheat is in premium or utility grade.”

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Dr Shadreck Makombe urged farmers to harvest their wheat on time.
“Harvesting of wheat has picked up,” he said. “The late planted crop is, however, not yet ready for harvesting. We are encouraging farmers with a crop that is ready for harvesting not to delay as it will be affected by early rains.”

Zimbabwe Farmers Union director, Mr Paul Zakariya yesterday said harvesting of wheat was progressing well and there were no major challenges being encountered by farmers.

“Some farmers have started harvesting their wheat and sending to the GMB,” he said.

“The bulk of the early crop is now ready for harvesting.”

This season, the Government through the Agricultural Finance Company (AFC) Leasing Company, and the private sector, are assisting farmers with combine harvesters.

This is third highest hectarage since independence.
Farmers unions have this year hailed Government for putting a sound harvesting schedule plan in place.
There is a plan for combine harvesters from the private sector and the AFC facility.

Stakeholders are also aware of the regions that produced wheat and expected dates of harvesting.

Zimbabwe will for the first time since 2005, become wheat self-sufficient as the Government is implementing the Agriculture Recovery Plan to boost food security and nutrition in line with Vision 2030.

Government has been targeting increases in wheat production to meet the national requirement in line with the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy, the Agriculture Recovery Plan and the National Development Strategy 1 and in pursuit of the vision of becoming an empowered and prosperous upper middle income society by 2030.

After last year’s major jump in the size of the harvest, another year of gain should see Zimbabwe for the first time ever, achieving self-sufficiency.

Last season, farmers produced wheat enough to take the country for nine months and this season they are expected to harvest more than 300 000 tonnes.

Already, there are 70 000 tonnes of the cereal in stock.

This will lead to wheat self-sufficiency since the country requires 360 000 tonnes of the cereal annually.

During the 2021 winter cropping season, 66 435.86 hectares were put under wheat, registering the third highest hectarage since independence and is only surpassed by plantings in 2004 (70 585 ha) and 2005 (67 261 ha).

The largest single harvest in history was in 1990 when 325 000 tonnes were achieved.

This season, wheat was produced through a Government guaranteed CBZ Agro-Yield programme, private contractors and the Presidential Winter Wheat Scheme.-The Herald