Zimpapers Logo

Conrad Mwanawashe Business Reporter

GRAIN processors have approached Government with an ambitious plan to exploit farms owned by the prison services, army and the Agricultural Rural Development Authority under contract farming which will include infrastructure development and irrigation development.The idea is influenced by the positive gains arising from the current contract farming arrangements which have increased production.

Buoyed by this, the chairman of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe Tafadzwa Musarara told Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was on tour of wheat farms in Chinhoyi on Tuesday, that the millers want to utilise idle land owned by State institutions under contract farming arrangements.

“Under our corporate farming plan, we request your assistance for us to have access to farms owned by prisons, ARDA and army. Investors are there and waiting in the wings,” said Mr Musarara.

Already the millers have entered into contract farming arrangements with some farmers. The projects are being run under GMAZ’s corporate farming programme.

“We would want access to all the arable land with water bodies so that we can utilise that land. We are prepared to support every wheat farmer structured in a five-year contract including the development of infrastructure, roads and irrigation equipment,” said Mr Musarara.

He said close to $3 million has been invested on two farms in the Lions Den area in Chinhoyi, on the back of the support from the milling industry in partnership with the grain traders and fertiliser producers. More investment would be put in depending on the availability of arable land.

The millers were also buoyant that Statutory Instrument 64 introduced in July this year has brought back business to the sector.

Mr Musarara said that since the introduction of SI64 all flour making companies are now running 24 hours.

“We are very grateful for Statutory 64. Since it was introduced as an industry we are now very busy,” said Mr Musarara.

“All the 11 companies that make flour are working 24 hours currently and we feel duty bound to defend the Government policy. By next week we should be in a position to quantify labour levels since the introduction of SI64.”

The millers with more land they can produce enough to feed the country.

“The country is consuming one million loaves of bread every day and self-raising flour. This means that per month we are consuming about 28 000 tonnes of flour per month most of which is being imported. The highest we have grown in this country was 200 000 tonnes against a demand of 420 000 tonnes,” he said.

“This is not a Zimbabwean challenge only. All countries in the region are not able to produce enough wheat for themselves. But we believe that we should grow as much as possible to reduce the import bill.”

Other leading milling companies supported the measures with a representative from Bahkresa, the new owners of Blue Ribbon Foods saying that the company is now operating at about 50 percent in wheat processing and about 100 percent in maize processing.

“Blue Ribbon is now running and as we talk today with all the support from your Government we are able to run at 50 percent capacity installed and we are running the maize mill at almost 100 percent capacity,” said Blue Ribbon Foods chief operating officer Muze Kamal.

National Foods Flour also gave its support to the measures saying the company has enough milling capacity to feed the nation.

“At the moment we have seen our capacity utilisation in our industry and we look forward to the total ban of finished goods so that we could preserve our precious foreign currency,” said National Foods Flour Milling managing executive Mutali Chawanda.

GMAZ members have also committed to take up to 800 000 tonnes of maize from the Command Agriculture programme.