Zimbabwe has enough wheat stocks to last until next harvest

The country has over 200 000 tonnes of wheat stocks sufficient to last until the next harvest and given the adverse effects of El Niño conditions, farmers have been advised to implement good agronomic practices in the forthcoming winter wheat cropping season to boost yields.

Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Deputy Minister Davis Marapira said in an interview on Friday.

Last year, Zimbabwe produced a record wheat harvest amounting to 465 000 tonnes, which was 100 000 tonnes more than the national demand that currently stands at 360 000 tonnes.

“So far, we have over 200 000 tonnes of wheat stocks at the Grain Marketing Board and this will cover the country for the next seven months.

“In the forthcoming winter season, we had targeted 90 000 hectares under wheat but the challenge now is we cannot guarantee the 90 000ha.

“This is because of the El-Nino (climatic) conditions where most of our dams now have low water levels as most of the water in those reservoirs, particularly where the rivers are not perennial was used during the summer cropping season to irrigate the maize crop over the prolonged periods of dry spells that were experienced,” he said.

Marapira was not certain to what extent the El Niño weather phenomenon would affect the area originally targeted to be planted during the 2024 winter cropping season.

Last year, 87 000ha were put under winter wheat countrywide.

“In agriculture, the yield is not guaranteed by the size of the area planted, but by the precision that takes into account all the good agronomic practices (doing the right things at the right time).

“For example, making sure that fertilisers and chemicals are available and applied at the right time, so if we don’t achieve the 90 000ha, that does not mean the desired tonnage the country requires will not be achieved.

“The strategy here is we may have 70 000ha which is a smaller (acreage) than 90 000ha (target), but still achieve a better yield. “So, what is needed is for the farmers to make sure that they implement good agronomic practices making sure that the fertilisers and chemicals are applied correctly,” he said.

Among other issues, Marapira said the Government would continue engaging Zesa over uninterrupted power supply in the forthcoming winter cropping season.

In the 2023 winter season, ZESA ring-fenced 120MW that were required by the farmers to facilitate irrigation.

The southern African country has made progress towards attaining self-sufficiency in wheat with imports having decreased by 11 percent from 210 million kilogrammess in 2021 to about 186 million in 2022.

It used to import 80 percent of the wheat consumed in the country but has made giant steps towards increasing local production to substitute imports which gobbled a significant part little foreign currency available.

In separate interviews, farmer representative bodies said they had scanned the market and noted that inputs such as fertilisers and chemicals were available as they prepared for the winter wheat planting season.

The Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director Paul Zakariya said: “Those that are going to be doing wheat are now preparing in terms of just making sure that the inputs are in place, but much activity will begin towards the end of March into April – that’s where we’ll have a lot of land preparation as they are removing summer crops from the fields to make way for the winter crop.

“As for the inputs, the prices have just been going up and availability is not a big issue, the inputs are available we just have to make sure that top dressing fertilizer by the time it is required, it’s available.”

He said most of the wheat in Zimbabwe is produced through contract farming by private players because self-financing by the farmers is a bit of a challenge.

Wheat farming is also financed through schemes such as the Government-guaranteed CBZ Agro-Yield programme as well as the Presidential Winter Wheat Scheme.

“Many farmers self-finance, they will be relying on the performance of the market that the market would have paid for their summer crop that is if anything is coming out of that.

“For those who are self-financing themselves, there have been concerns of market delays in payment for summer crops delivered, so contractors have been doing more work to provide the inputs,” said Zakariya.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Dr Shadreck Makombe said people will be harvesting the summer crop soon paving the way for land preparation ahead of the winter planting deadline by May 15.

“It is prudent for farmers to start preparing so that come April the first crop, they put it because the cut-off date ordinarily should be 15 May meaning everything should be done before the 15th of May although some farmers may overlap that deadline.

“But we would encourage farmers to plant timeously because of late, we have realised that wheat which is done in April is doing well so we would rather encourage farmers to take advantage of the moisture content,” he said.-ebusinesswekly