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Golden Sibanda Senior Business Reporter
DELTA Corporation has received 15 675 tonnes of sorghum grown under contract farming it funded to the tune of $4,13 million. The giant beverages maker requires 15 000 tonnes of sorghum annually and sources it locally through contract farming.

The total contracted hectarage for the 2015 /16 season was 4 711 hectares, a 10 percent reduction compared to the prior season.

Zimbabwe’s most valuable company by market value, said this in a statement released at the 57th edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, which ends in Bulawayo tomorrow.

Delta said that it had, through its farmer development programme, contracted a total of 9 381 (9 982 is recorded in board’s report) communal farmers and 28 commercial farmers.

“The main reason for the reduction in contracted hectarage was a reduction in stock utilisation due to lower beer volume consumption and also the need to minimise the impact of the predicted El Nino induced drought,” Delta said.

The company added that its drive was also to limit the farmers’ exposure to drought by reducing each farmer’s hectarage.

Delta offers a free and extensive quality assurance programme for access to technical information by growers, improved yields and grain quality. The farmers are also supported with input finance in the form of agricultural inputs.

Training and extension support ensure access to farming inputs to guarantee future supply of malting sorghum for the goup whilst also guaranteeing a market for the sorghum producers.

Delta Corporation is Zimbabwe’s biggest brewer with more than 15 beer brands and over 4 000 workers across the country.

The group recorded a 6 percent decline in revenue in the quarter to March 2016 and 7 percent fall for the full year due to changes in the company’s portfolio mix and price moderation.

The company said its volumes and revenue performance reflected the macro-economic situation in the country while infiltration of products from other markers weakened demand.